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.
Sunday April 20, 2008
Now that I know there are bears about, every snapping twig gets my attention. The cherry tree’s pink with swollen buds. A rumble of thunder.
Saturday April 19, 2008
Over the dawn fusillade of woodpeckers, I hear the distant gobbles of a turkey. Five deer graze below the house. The doves make moan.
Friday April 18, 2008
Still cloudless, but the light lacks the crystal-clarity of previous mornings. Juncos all a-twitter, perhaps feeling the pull of the north.
Thursday April 17, 2008
Fresh from their beds, two deer come out of the woods and stand blinking at the new green grass. One scratches her belly with a hind foot.