Sunny and cold. The peony sprouts are at that stage of development where it’s hard not to see them as little red hands—waving, drowning.
April 2020
April 14, 2020
Sunny and cold. The intense green of the lilac’s new leaves against the brown woods moves me almost to tears. A blue-headed vireo sings.
April 13, 2020
Intermittent showers after a night of storms. A dead oak leaf stands upright among the daffodils like someone at the wrong party.
April 12, 2020
Faint sunlight. A gnatcatcher’s nasal notes against the background noise of field sparrows. My mother calls to come look at a dead mole.
April 11, 2020
Cloudy and cold. Two squirrels excavate nuts a foot apart in the yard, keeping a wary eye on each other. A red-bellied woodpecker trills.
April 10, 2020
High winds continue. The other white plastic stack chair suddenly turns, slides off the porch and topples into the fresh half-inch of snow.
April 9, 2020
Curtains of rain blow this way and that. The crack of branch. Bits of gray paper come flying loose from the old hornets’ nest under the eaves.
April 8, 2020
The silhouette of a small accipiter—doubtless one of the resident Cooper’s hawks—swift and silent as it disappears into the trees.
April 7, 2020
Overcast. A black vulture drifts back and forth, occasionally flapping its wings—which sets off a squirrel, vigilant against hawks.
April 6, 2020
Two faded contrails in an otherwise clear sky. A cardinal sings his spring song, which bears a very strong resemblance to his winter song.
April 5, 2020
Again this morning around 10:30, for the fifth day in a row, a Cooper’s hawk calls up in the woods. In the hawk’s mind, it might be a song.
April 4, 2020
Overcast and still. The gobbling of a wild turkey up in the field echoes off the ridge—a startling thing to hear once, let alone twice.
April 3, 2020
Sun silvering black birch twigs. From the woods beyond, the call of a Cooper’s hawk. It can’t be long till the first shadbush blooms.
April 2, 2020
Birds keep landing on the empty feeder, like kids in a home with an unpaid cable bill staring at the TV. The wind pages through my notebook.