Friday, September 30
CAMOUFLAGE An abandoned feather: a dried-out leaf; a branch: a shed antler; a toad: a stone; in the high tawny grass a tawny bas-relief of half-hidden pronghorns on the run; geese overhead: gridlocked drivers, close, leaning on their horns; thunder: a truck barreling down my street, rattling windows (an enormous semi, when the earthquake struck). A branchless tree trunk is a obelisk until its top lifts off, flaps hulking wings and glides: a great horned owl prowling at dusk. Soon, perhaps we'll learn---a cricket sings, or is that just the evening's quickening pulse?--- to rise and reappear as something else. (Jacqueline Osherow)