Dawn comes during a break in the rain, building from one lone cardinal to a phoebe singing contest to a mob of crows. From the pipe under the road, a winter wren’s soft cascade.
phoebe
4/4/2024
Thick fog brightening in the east. Over the roar of the creek, a phoebe’s small, inexhaustible engine.
3/30/2024
Red sunrise. To the south, the moon has gone flat on one side so it resembles a giant ear for the first crow to yell into when it created the world. The chanting phoebe clearly has no inkling.
3/26/2024
Red spreading from the clouds to the western ridge. Robin, cardinal, phoebe: the early-spring trio, joined by a downy woodpecker on percussion with a high-pitched dead limb.
3/15/2024
A gray cloud ceiling brightens toward the horizon. A phoebe stridently announces himself to the echoey hillside and the daffodils trembling in the breeze.
9/22/2023
Cool but not quite as clear, with a thin, high scrim of clouds and the incessant beeping of quarry trucks, to which a migrant phoebe briefly responds.
9/17/2023
Gray sky ten minutes after a flaming sunrise. A phoebe calls for old times’ sake. Quarry trucks rumble through the gap.
8/24/2023
Overcast and cool. A phoebe calls a few times from beyond the spring house and falls silent. As if in mockery, a pewee’s slower, more lilting response.
8/9/2023
Clear and cool at sunrise. A phoebe’s bill snaps on a slow cranefly. From high overhead, the tolling of a bell soon turns into raven croaks.
4/12/2023
Two phoebes in a singing contest at dawn. A warm breeze. The half-moon settles in a tall pine.
3/23/2023
Fog and scattered showers. The last few woodcock peents overlap with phoebes—two of them already, trying to out-sing each other.
3/19/2023
A dozen dead leaves circle the yard as the clouds’ bellies turn orange. A phoebe calls once, sotto voce, from a branch above the creek.
3/17/2023
In the half-light of dawn, something approaches, rustling in the dry leaves: rain. A few minutes later, the first phoebe begins his time-worn chant.
10/16/2022
Colors so much warmer than the air. Halfway through the morning, the sky clears. Sun in the treetops. A phoebe calls.