Nature Blog Post 3

"Wild Cotton-Like Plant with Thorns"

         

           The past few weeks on the Morgantown Ave. cul-de-sac have been a study in disappearances. Take, for instances, the cotton-like wildflower appearing then disappearing in a flash beneath my nose. As has become a habit, on walks around the circle like these, I write down what I want to research later. This time however, when I return indoors and search the internet, I find nothing. Well, almost nothing. I find a photo of the exact wildflower I saw, but it is a portrait being sold titled "Wild Cotton-Like Plant with Thorns," which functions like a sonnet titled "Sonnet."

            When I return the next day to study the flower again, it is gone. In fact, all the brush at the base of the landlocked island is gone. I ask a neighbor. She tells me the landscaper is paid a few dollars extra to sweep away the brush. I am surprised by the sinking feeling in my gut.

            Or what of the deer I see early in the morning, grazing in the raised earth center of the cul-de-sac's circle, when I let Nikki out to go potty? A heavy fog conceals them, showing only a neck here, a flurry of legs there. This morning fog an exhaled drag on a cigarette, blown away the next time I look.

            In an attempt to doctor up the porch for fall, Jenna and I bought magnificent red and yellow daisies to sit on the porch-side table, about a week ago. They look like yellow daisies that a painter pained over, applying maroon brushstrokes to every petal. But when I walked out the door yesterday, the strikes had been erased. It was as if the red coursing through them were electricity, and someone had unplugged the power.

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            All this begs the question What is here to stay?

            Well, for one thing, the stinkbugs. As the fall season begins, the stinkbugs attack. Every window, every crevice is filled with them. As I take a book from my bookshelf, I jump – a stinkbug is clutched to the spine.

            In class last week, three origami swans lay on the table, each one smaller than the one before it. I have been struggling to write a poem about stinkbugs, to alleviate my frustration with them somehow. It strikes me that I can shrink them like the origami-artist has. I scribble in my notebook: origami stinkbugs in descending order.

            The cowlick I see in the trees through the dishwashing window.

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            When I leave my hilltop parking spot this morning, the sudden rush of movement throws leaves from my car. It is still somewhat dark. The play of brake lights on the leaves falling from the back of the car like fluttering ambulance beacons. I feel it is inextricably autumn.