Botanically speaking, I’m sitting in Europe, staring at the New World. Over there it’s still mostly brown, and the birds sing more quietly.
April 2008
Tuesday April 29, 2008
Cold. A chipmunk’s steady tick. When I go back in, a half-dozen cherry petals precede me—random dance steps on the cherry-stained floor.
Monday April 28, 2008
Morning like a tinted photo. Wood thrush song, the susurration of rain, a greenish-yellow haze of oak blossoms merging with the clouds.
Sunday April 27, 2008
Overcast and cold. The porch and yard are aglow with cherry blossoms, blown down by yesterday’s storms. A catbird mews from the springhouse.
Saturday April 26, 2008
Cherry blossoms are falling—an early-morning bumblebee. Dressed for a funeral, I sit listening to the first wood thrushes of the year.
Friday April 25, 2008
Black cherries leaf out before flowering, but this morning I notice three white spots in the one across the road: budding caterpillar tents.
Thursday April 24, 2008
I dreamed of a late snow and woke to find the earliest miniature yellow daffodils shriveled, and a new clump of white ones in full bloom.
Wednesday April 23, 2008
A male starling—a rarity here—lands among the cherry blossoms, iridescent black feathers speckled with white. He gargles musically.
Tuesday April 22, 2008
In the half-light, the faint crackling sound of a deer eating a rose bush. A lone Canada goose flies over, honking enough for a whole flock.
Monday April 21, 2008
Shrill chirps of a truck going in reverse. Under a lowering sky, daylight seeps from the jagged blaze of forsythia at the edge of the woods.