Snow mixed with sleet. The feral balloons have wrapped themselves more tightly around their tree—a classic trade of freedom for security.
Month: March 2019
Distant gunshots from the shooting range in the valley. The impression of rising excitement in a field sparrow’s song.
Warmish and rainy. From the valley to the east: a great blue heron with its sword-blade wings, its spring-loaded neck. A killdeer’s call.
Gnats are flying, and I think about the first insects, 340 million years before flowers—an alien earth preserved in these very hills.
The snowbank has shrunk to the size of a dog curled up on the dead grass. A tom turkey lets loose with his lust-gargle, his aggressive ache.
After a cold night, the gift of clarity: a mote of drifting cattail down visible at 100 yards. A raven croaking on high is echoed by a crow.
Trapped in a tree, two balloons bearing a picture of a basketball and the name of a school west of Pittsburgh rub their Mylar skins together.
Sun through thin clouds—dim as a lizard’s third eye. A red-tailed hawk drifts past without flapping.
Deep blue sky. The distant rumble of a freight train heading west. The one remaining snowbank in the yard looks permanent as marble.
The banks of moss above the road shine bright after last night’s rain. Two chickadees sing their spring songs as snowflakes fill the air.
Dull light through a heavy cloud ceiling. A red-bellied woodpecker and mourning dove take turns calling, first dirge, then ululation.
A Carolina wren yells from the balustrade while his mate rummages around inside the old hornets’ nest. The sky slowly turns white.
Warm enough for a ladybug to walk at half speed. The distant croak of a raven. A cloud comes over the ridge, towing its shadow.
Not as cold today—nor as loud, the main pulse of meltwater having passed. I watch a pair of amorous nuthatches flit from tree to tree.