Marcia Bonta

  • October’s Bright Blue Weather

    Another October has come and gone and Dad was not here to see “October’s bright blue weather.” Even though he was born in January in the midst of a blizzard, I always thought of October as his month. Maybe that’s because not an October went by without him reciting Helen Hunt Jackson’s “October’s Bright Blue…

  • An Irish Spring

    “I wake and hear it raining.” So begins Mark Van Doren’s wonderful poem “Morning Worship” and so began many of my mornings last spring. Van Doren goes on to list the wonders of the natural world he would miss were he dead, praising all the “sweet beings” that he knows will outlive him–mountains, huge trees,…

  • Insects of Indian Summer

    By November most insects are either dead or hibernating, but some species, both native and alien, are aroused by the soft warmth of Indian summer. Once again the fields and forests sing with a quieter rendition of the grasshopper-cricket-katydid chorus of late summer and early fall. Bristly great leopard moth and woolly bear caterpillars unfurl…