October 31: Halloween

Outside, pitch-dark.

All rainy evening

two cats go in and out.

 

Posted with Blogsy

October 30: Buffleheads

Count six bobbing ducks,
then thirty. Coldest morning yet.
I hardly notice.

October 29: Morning ritual

Crow watches
as I scrape the frost
from my windshield.

October 28: Hooded Mergansers

Driving through Belfast this afternoon after a couple of meetings, I gave myself permission to take the time to stop and watch a group of about ten Hooded Mergansers bobbing in the dark waters of a small, city-owned pond called The Muck.

Pulled over to watch
mergansers gathered on a pond.
Just that.

Hooded Merganser drake.
Photo by Ken Billington via Wikimedia Commons

October 27: Sunday

In from the woods.
Crusty boule, toasted, with Brie.
Football on TV.

October 26: Nostalgia

One maple still glows
still holds all its shining leaves
and two crows.

October 25: Movement

Unseen upriver
many geese honking,
then the flurry of wings.

October 24: Weather report

Waiting for wind to rise
and strip away all these colors.
He's gone again.

October 23: Pandora

Listening to Pandora Internet Radio while at work...

Ah, this song,

and those last red leaves.

I get nothing done.

October 22: Deeper into fall

Waiting for a phone call.

A single crow flies straight

and high overhead.

October 21: Beechnuts

Split beechnut husks
piled along the path.
What will get me through winter?

October 20: After they saw the Wizard of Oz exhibit at the Farnsworth Museum

My mom and I took my two young nieces up the chair lift at the Camden Snow Bowl this morning, to enjoy the view from on high on Ragged Mountain: burnished golds of the foliage, glimpse of the bay and its islands.

She had to wear
her shiny new red shoes
up the mountain.

[Information on the Farnsworth's Wizard of Oz exhibit, which I haven't yet seen, here.]

October 19: Sumac

Scarlet sumac leaves,
scarlet sumac berries.
A turkey scuttles past.

October 18: Storm passing

Was walking in the wet woods this morning just as the rain clouds were lifting away and the last drops shaken loose from the branches shone in the incipient sunlight.

Gold aspen leaves plastered
on the forest floor,
one wet, white mushroom.

October 17: Megunticook Lake

Lake's surface unreal, so smooth.
Thinking about last night's dream
as I drive past.

(This photo by Scott Dickerson could've been taken this morning but wasn't.)

October 16: Rustle

Something rustles
in the leaves. Mist on the river
turns to rain.

October 15: Gifts

To a cat
a dead mouse on the doorstep
is a thoughtful gift.

October 14: Corn maze at Beth's Farmstand

Blackbirds and unseen kids

chatter while we find our way

through the corn maze.

Posted with Blogsy

October 13: Cathedral Woods

No sunlight down here.

The only sounds: distant sea

and our footsteps.

Posted with Blogsy

October 12: Back to Monhegan

The same trees, red now.

The same sea, breathing

a cold autumn song.

 

Posted with Blogsy

October 11: Just before sunset, then sunset

Looking out the back window this evening as the sun sinks lower: first, a placid-looking tabby cat, not ours, just sitting there at the edge of the grass for a long time, looking toward the house; still there; still there; still there; then, sky aglow with sunset's hot pinks and oranges. Then, of course, darkness. That always comes.

Strange cat sits calmly
at our lawn's edge, stalks away.
Then, blazing sky.

October 10: Zugunruhe

Gotta love those German compound nouns: Zug (move, migration) + Unruhe (restlessness, anxiety) = the urge to migrate, used most often in reference to birds.

Sparrows in the fields.
Just made my reservations
for this weekend's trip.

October 9: Office work

Crow caws sound like laughter.
I'm stuck inside
on a perfect fall day.

October 8: Direction

Stepped out last night to see if the aurora borealis visible in northern Maine was visible here. 

New moon moving west

all afternoon, and now

Big Dipper points north.

October 7: Postseason

As the autumn leaves glow dimly through the mist in the dying light of this October evening, the Red Sox third playoff game vs. the Tampa Bay Rays in a five-game ALDS series has just gotten underway.

Bottom of the first.
Spaghetti sauce simmers
while I knit, anxiously.