Quiet except for the wail of an eastbound freight: Grazierville. Tyrone. Plummer’s Hollow. Then wind and darkness, coffee bitter in my cup.
Year: 2008
Canada geese. What leaf is small and black and falls more slowly than a feather? A fire dances up in the trash burner, the brightest thing.
The coldest morning so far this season. Faint noises in the darkness must be leaves letting go, brushing against branches on their way down.
First sign of dawn: the moonlight on the leaves of the cherry tree begins to lose its luster. A distant military jet breaks the stillness.
First frost: a few small patches in the lowest parts of the yard. New holes in the wall of woods go from light to dark as clouds move in.
After an orange sunrise, the morning turns overcast and still. Two pileated woodpeckers fly over, one after the other—slow silent missiles.
I can smell the rain coming two hours away. When it finally arrives, mixed in with the falling leaves, two spring peepers begin to call.
A winter wren’s wandering burble from above the dry creek. A visitor brings out his old-time banjo and tunes it with an electronic tuner.
Sun in the treetops. A bluejay lands on a bare branch and does a good Cooper’s hawk impression: eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh. Such an April sound!
When the wind blows from the west, I can hear people talking at the new house site. When it blows from the east, the trees creak and groan.
BAM. BAM. BAM. The red crest of a pileated woodpecker flashes into view from the dead side of a maple, sunrise orange on the hill behind.
The yard’s alive with birds: sparrows, jays, robins. In the yellowing wall of foliage at the woods’ edge, I see the first chinks of sky.
Before light, a pair of spring peepers calling down by the boggy corner of the field—ready to spring again, if only it weren’t time to fall.
A squirrel with a walnut in its mouth trots across the porch, right under my chair. Five minutes later, another follows suit. What the hell?