The mayapples next to the creek have opened their umbrellas. We do need rain. Already, the top branches of the crabapple have caught fire.
April 2010
4/15/2010
Squirrels grapple on a skinny branch 20 feet up. One falls to the ground with a loud plop and races off, sun shining through its tail.
4/14/2010
Thick ground fog, one degree below freezing. The trees grow sharper as the sun begins to blur. Please don’t flower yet, I tell the oaks.
4/13/2010
At 8:02 a patter of rain too brief to even darken the sidewalk. Nuthatch, field sparrow. A crow bleats like a lamb with a hand on its neck.
4/12/2010
The Cooper’s hawk swoops down from the woods’ edge into the ditch and dips his beak again and again in its cold clear blood.
4/11/2010
A groundhog among the daffodils rears up on its haunches like the very large squirrel that it is. A tiger swallowtail careens past.
4/10/2010
Drifts of white on the springhouse roof: not fallen blossoms, but last night’s pellet snow. Tree creaks join the dawn chorus.
4/9/2010
Time has slowed again with the return of cold weather. The bleeding-hearts in my garden are huddling on half-grown stems.
4/8/2010
The miniature daffodils around the dog statue have shriveled in the night. Turkeys display at the edge of the field, reversible blooms.
4/7/2010
Shirtsleeves at dawn. I rub my eyes at the new blossom-clouds, at green fogs of leaves. It’s too sudden, a premature ejaculation of spring.
4/6/2010
Bumblebees joust, and a sun-drugged honeybee wanders the folds of my jeans. Spring’s parade devolves into a mob, everything blooming at once.
4/5/2010
Yellow at daybreak: forsythia, daffodils, the spicebush by the springhouse, a flock of goldfinches… what else? The sun crests the ridge.
4/4/2010
A hermit thrush lands beside the porch and sings: that eldritch almost-whisper, spirit of the forest. Church bells. A distant chainsaw.
4/3/2010
Such a startling and ridiculous sound, the turkey’s gobble—like gargling with marbles. And then a blue-headed vireo’s quiet soliloquy.