The sort of rain that makes the world puddle-wonderful. Around the broken old dog statue, the daffodils have drawn their yellow hoop.
March 2021
March 30, 2021
Crystal clear sky. Hundreds of daffodil buds look ready to open this afternoon. From up in the woods, a cry like a strangled crow.
March 29, 2021
Cold and blustery. The kak-kak-kak of a Cooper’s hawk, who comes rocketing out of the woods a second later with a redtail in pursuit.
March 28, 2021
Rain and the first daffodils: April has come early. Fog appears and disappears among the trees. The robin unspools a silver thread of song.
March 27, 2021
Sun climbing every tree at once. A hollow snag mutters like a stomach with its cargo of squirrels.
March 26, 2021
Sunny and warm with high winds, as if March’s proverbial lion and lamb were the same. Trees sway drunkenly. Their dead shed leaves rise up.
March 25, 2021
Overcast and damp, with woodpecker rattle and squirrel-claw clatter and an exuberant robin duetting with his echo.
March 24, 2021
Dawn. A phoebe and a cardinal are singing in the rain. At the woods’ edge, the last patch of snow has shrunk to the size of a hubcap.
March 23, 2021
The last patch of snow is sinking into the earth. A titmouse flits from branch to branch up a walnut sapling, whistling softly to himself.
March 22, 2021
Sunrise. I watch the trees grow shadows and pelts of sunlight. Anyone rooted can become a gnomon: from the Greek, an expert or interpreter.
March 21, 2021
A few degrees above freezing on a day forecast to be warm, and the air is already busy with flying things: insects, milkweed down, a phoebe.
March 20, 2021
Equinox. A cowbird’s liquid note. My breath glows in the sunlight as if from the lungs of some gold buddha.
March 19, 2021
A ray of sun strikes the lilac, setting its yellow buds aglow. The sound of water gurgling under my yard. The back-and-forth of nuthatches.
March 18, 2021
A dark morning; the ridges disappear into fog. A Carolina wren’s call is barely audible over the rain’s deafening hush.