Overcast and cold. The porch and yard are aglow with cherry blossoms, blown down by yesterday’s storms. A catbird mews from the springhouse.
Dave Bonta
April 26, 2008
Cherry blossoms are falling—an early-morning bumblebee. Dressed for a funeral, I sit listening to the first wood thrushes of the year.
April 25, 2008
Black cherries leaf out before flowering, but this morning I notice three white spots in the one across the road: budding caterpillar tents.
April 24, 2008
I dreamed of a late snow and woke to find the earliest miniature yellow daffodils shriveled, and a new clump of white ones in full bloom.
April 23, 2008
A male starling—a rarity here—lands among the cherry blossoms, iridescent black feathers speckled with white. He gargles musically.
April 22, 2008
In the half-light, the faint crackling sound of a deer eating a rose bush. A lone Canada goose flies over, honking enough for a whole flock.
April 21, 2008
Shrill chirps of a truck going in reverse. Under a lowering sky, daylight seeps from the jagged blaze of forsythia at the edge of the woods.
April 20, 2008
Now that I know there are bears about, every snapping twig gets my attention. The cherry tree’s pink with swollen buds. A rumble of thunder.
April 19, 2008
Over the dawn fusillade of woodpeckers, I hear the distant gobbles of a turkey. Five deer graze below the house. The doves make moan.
April 18, 2008
Still cloudless, but the light lacks the crystal-clarity of previous mornings. Juncos all a-twitter, perhaps feeling the pull of the north.
April 17, 2008
Fresh from their beds, two deer come out of the woods and stand blinking at the new green grass. One scratches her belly with a hind foot.
April 16, 2008
Cool morning of a day forecast to be warm. The sun turns daffodils, red maple blossoms, and the silver fur of the willow into stained glass.
April 15, 2008
Clear and quiet. Off in the woods, the jagged pine snag gleams yellowish-white, as if in imitation of the lightning bolt that killed it.
April 14, 2008
Clear, and four degrees below freezing. I watch the sunlight descend a tall tulip poplar and try to block out the sound of morning traffic.