In the half-light of dawn, the pale apparition of an opossum at the edge of the woods. It climbs through the lilac, zigzags across the rain-soaked yard and disappears into the crawlspace under my house.
Dave Bonta
The soft wheezing of a black-and-white warbler alternates with a chipping sparrow’s dry rattle: soundtrack for the flutter of tiny leaves, their Pointillist greens against the gray of incipient rain.
Thin cloud, yet the sun’s still strong enough for leaf-glimmer and the shimmer of spider-silk strands already stringing tree to tree. A gray squirrel chases a red squirrel past my feet.
Warm and a bit humid. As the sun climbs, the brightest shine shifts from mayapple leaves along the creek to the mountain laurel in the woods, shimmering as if unafflicted by any blight.
Overcast and cold and sunrise, with drips and drops that slowly coalesce into rain. My nostrils flare: the thirsty earth is already releasing petrichor. The field sparrows sing on.
Cold, clear, and still, with heavy frost silvering the yard. A red squirrel tries to get its nerve up to run past me, but fails and retreats to the garden, where it sits glaring at a gray squirrel under the lilac.
Three degrees above freezing at sunrise. Small snowflakes drift down from the mostly blue sky and vanish into the greening earth.
Breezy and cold. The tuilp poplars wear their new, pale green leaves like robes of feathers, all in motion under the gray sky. I catch a glimpse of accipiter wings, hear the kak-kak-kak call of a Cooper’s hawk.
Mid-morning and the sun-soaked woods erupt with overlapping wild turkey gobbles, one tom getting gobbled up—so to speak—by another. They sound close, but the tiny leaves are already enough cover to hide in.
Cool and still damp from rain in the small hours. The sun goes back in after just fifteen minutes. The house finch stops caroling as the wind picks up.
The sun glimmers through thin clouds and a murk of pollen, gathering strength as it clears the trees. A gray squirrel foraging on the ground dashes for cover at another squirrel’s “bird of prey” alarm. The bird of prey fails to materialize.
A freakishly warm breeze lightly seasoned with rain. The sun appears and disappears at random. A Louisiana waterthrush calls from the first bend in the creek below the spring.
Sun through thin clouds on an unseasonably warm morning. A carpenter bee inspects my aging porch. Next to the old broken dog statue in my yard, the white narcissus is in bloom.
Under gray skies, the leaf buds of tulip trees are splitting open: green fuzz against the clouds. A cowbird’s liquid note.