At the woods’ edge, the tulip poplar sprouts a scarlet thorn: pileated woodpecker. A gust of wind drops a dried leaf into my lap.
2016
3/17/2016
Trees rock and sway in the wind—still the quiet wind of winter, hissing only in the pines. The startled flute of a mourning dove’s wings.
3/16/2016
Overcast and damp. The distant calls of a killdeer, returning from migration and spying the valley’s alluringly barren fields.
3/15/2016
At first light, off in the fog, the weird, nasal calls of timberdoodles. One launches into the air with a whistling of wings.
3/14/2016
Sound is out of the east: quarry trucks and grinders. In the gray woods, gray squirrels glide silently over the rain-slicked leaf duff.
3/13/2016
Rain. In the marshy corner of the field, the duck-like calls of wood frogs, just up from their cryogenic sleep and already fully aroused.
3/12/2016
Bright sun. From the valley, four gunshots in quick succession, followed by silence. A phoebe circles the house singing, as if sizing me up.
3/11/2016
Sunrise tints the clouds orange. I squint through eyelids made bleary with pink-eye and lack of sleep. A downy woodpecker’s soft rattle.
3/10/2016
Cloudy and warm. The first phoebe calls echo off the ridge like buzzy, two-note alarm clocks set for spring.
3/9/2016
Strong sun; vociferous crows. It’s astonishing how many strands of spider web and caterpillar silk still shimmer in the trees.
3/8/2016
Sunny and warm. A bluebird is warbling up by the barn and a song sparrow sings next to the springhouse.
3/7/2016
Warm and clear. As the morning wears on, the traffic noise from over the ridge diminishes, leaving only the field sparrow’s ascending song.
3/6/2016
In the warm sun at the woods’ edge, a groundhog gathers a mouthful of dried leaves and dives into her burrow. Far-off cries of tundra swans.
3/5/2016
A yellow smear of sun on the white-bread sky. The distant knocks of a pileated woodpecker seeking admittance to frozen galleries of ants.