Clouds gather and, over the course of an hour, disappear again. A small red spider rappels down from my glasses onto the red porch floor.
2015
April 5, 2015
Warm and windy. Great mobs of dried leaves cartwheel out of the woods. A piece of milkweed down drifts past, liberated from its seed.
April 4, 2015
Fast moving cumulus clouds. When the sun comes out, it glistens on the mountain laurel leaves in the woods and in the yard, the periwinkle.
April 3, 2015
Two deer wander through the yard, coats wet with rain. The scrawnier one samples the daffodil sprouts, then startles at the old dog statue.
April 2, 2015
Sunny and warm. A rabbit emerges from its burrow to graze on dead grass. Chickadees singing “fee-bee” are interrupted by an actual phoebe.
April 1, 2015
The rapid-fire drumming of a downy woodpecker on a hollow limb. A field sparrow’s ascending call. My partner snaps a photo of her feet.
March 31, 2015
Two A-10 aircraft roar over; I get a glimpse of the nearer one through the trees. A dove flees on whistling wings. A vulture keeps circling.
March 30, 2015
Cold with low rain clouds at dawn. Over the noise from I-99, the nasal mating calls of that shoreless shorebird, the American woodcock.
March 29, 2015
Clear and cold at dawn. Nothing but the sound of water gurgling in the spring until, at length, the first distant bird call: song sparrow.
March 28, 2015
A dusting of snow. Three song sparrows are trying to out-sing each other, and the tall black locust at the woods’ edge creaks with ice.
March 26, 2015
Could that be thunder? The sun struggles to shine. On the flattened grass where snow sat until yesterday, a scatter of black walnut husks.
March 25, 2015
In an interval between cold rain showers, the sky brightens, until the remnant snowbanks begin to glow. A chickadee pivots atop a stump.
March 24, 2015
A fresh dusting of snow. I close my eyes to listen the birds: song sparrow, bluebird, chickadee, a white-throated sparrow’s wavering song.
March 23, 2015
From high overhead, the faint cries of swans. I scan the clear sky in vain. A blue jay drinks from a seep in the yard beside the dogwoods.