The sky unscarred by a single contrail is as blue as I’ve ever seen it. A hawk spirals higher and higher, unthreading gravity’s screw.
Dave Bonta
Saturday March 21, 2020
Each day the silence grows a little deeper. My self-isolating mother stops on her way past to pick a bouquet of just-opened daffodils.
Friday March 20, 2020
Above the roar of the creek, the first phoebe, phoebe, phoebe. Harlequin ladybirds are emerging from the walls of the house and flying off.
Thursday March 19, 2020
The rain eases off by midday but the cowbird at the top of a tall black locust tree continues to spill his single, liquid note.
Wednesday March 18, 2020
Through egg-white clouds that bright yolk. The hoarse but exuberant call of a red-winged blackbird echoes off the hillside.
Tuesday March 17, 2020
In the fog and mizzle, swelling yellow-green lilac buds are the brightest thing. A single jet goes over in all the time I sit outside.
Sunday March 15, 2020
Bright sun. The damp ground glistens like a salamander. A jet goes over—the first I’ve heard in a while.
Friday March 13, 2020
Rain past, the hollow is full of birds. Fast moving clouds. A Carolina wren sings exultantly through a high gust of wind.
Thursday March 12, 2020
Sun through thin clouds. A flash of red as a cardinal emerges from bathing in the stream. Two ravens croak back and forth, high and low.
Wednesday March 11, 2020
Overcast and still. Two downy woodpeckers a quarter mile apart have found dead trees that, when hammered, ring at precisely the same pitch.