The miniature daffodils are in bloom around the old dog statue, a new scurf of snow on its back where the white paint long ago flaked free.
Dave Bonta
April 6, 2009
First light. A rabbit in the yard vanishes when it stops moving. Over the rain, I can just make out the soft, fey notes of a hermit thrush.
April 5, 2009
Twelve cowbirds in the sunlit crown of a walnut tree take turns with their single, liquid syllable, the blue sky gurgling in every ditch.
April 4, 2009
Every time the wind dies, I hear the steady ticking of a chipmunk. A rift opens in the clouds just wide enough for half the sun.
April 3, 2009
A warm east wind. Curtains of rain on the almost-open buds of red maple, pussy willow, daffodils, and lilac leaves like green bishop’s hats.
April 2, 2009
April 1, 2009
Buds swell on the ornamental cherry beside the porch, unaware that porcupines have girdled the trunk. April Fool! You’re dead.
March 31, 2009
Sunny and cold. My mother starts up the trail into the woods with her pant-legs tucked into her socks against the plague of deer ticks.
March 30, 2009
March 29, 2009
March 28, 2009
Dark morning. The fox squirrel’s tail flickers orange from the back of the big red maple whose buds have swollen into dime-sized stoplights.
March 27, 2009
March 26, 2009
March 25, 2009
A harsh cooing from the pine tree closest to the porch, like a hawk crossed with a dove. Two crows fly in, scold for a minute, and fly off.