5:05 a.m. 61 degrees, wind SSE 1 mph; even the fog ignores the breeze. Sky: the ceiling sinks to the floor, a world of undifferentiated moisture, walking through a cloud. Visibility less than a hundred feet; leaves fade from vibrant to dull green the higher up I look—an October morning with July heat. Permanent streams: same as yesterday, gurgling. Intermittent streams: muddy ribbons of damp earth. I can't see anything in the wetlands, though there is a vague sense of vastness; far shoreline erased by the very element that sustains it. Red-shouldered hawk either hunts hilltops, islands in the sea of fog, or waits for the sun to call the moisture home. The surface of the pond: a cloud that lost celebrity. Painted turtle, head in the mist, idles, bewitched by morning, and obliged to be patient. Fog makes valleys more mysterious, hides imperfections, highlights possibilities, even possibilities on the threshold of a city, stimulates imagination like a drug but without after-effects.
I once wandered out the front door, slogged for an hour in a fog, literally and figuratively; wound up in an adjacent marsh more than a mile for home before I realized I was lost.
Lichen awakens—an intense aquamarine. White ash seeds litter the road. Pockets of sound, most often featuring a red-eyed vireo, which sings like yesterday and the day before that. Six purple finches chase each other through hemlock crowns. Spiderwebs festooned with dew. Morning's metronome: tail-flicking red squirrel, a chatter-box.
Most of the action this morning is in the front yard. A pair of rose-breasted grosbeaks and a pair of evening grosbeaks gather on the tube feeders, male rose-breasted and female evening on one feeder, counterparts of the other. Integration avian style. No hostilities (for the moment). Five gray squirrels and a chipmunk assemble beneath the feeders, scavenging what the grosbeaks spill.
The other night, Jordan came home to three luna moths on the porch, chummed by light. By morning, vanished. Yesterday, I found the husk of a four-inch sphinx moth near the barn; its sharp, mottled wings angled back like a boomerang. Big colorful moths render landscapes wilder; add meaning to a meaningful valley, appearing when I least expect it and, like fog, turning my world inside-out. I take the moth into the kitchen, place it on the radio next to a luna, both gorgeous in death, both spectacular in life, and both rest, the holiest alliances.