Bare ground now predominates in the woods, and the ditches are loud with snowmelt. Two gangs of crows meet in the air, yelling, circling.
Dave Bonta
March 14, 2008
A heavy inversion layer—I have quarry trucks for company this morning. Over the roar, from the corner of the field, the first singing robin.
March 13, 2008
Sunrise. I’m in a staring contest with a groundhog who just emerged from under the house. I blink, and he disappears. A piercing whistle.
March 12, 2008
Last night, I almost stepped on the porcupine—it could barely walk. This morning, on the cherry tree beside the porch, bright yellow wounds.
March 11, 2008
Weak sun. A “v” of northbound swans. Bass notes of a distant thumper car sound almost like a drumming grouse, except they do not stop.
March 10, 2008
Gray sky, and the air is lousy with snowflakes. The usual birds are making the usual chirps. A train whistle, horrendously out of tune.
March 9, 2008
Winter’s back! My white plastic stack chair lies upside-down at the end of the porch. The snowpack has gone from quicksand back to granite.
March 8, 2008
A chipmunk emerges from the base of the stone wall and races over the soft snow. All this rain has brought out the blush in the red maples.
March 7, 2008
A red sunrise. Loud rending sounds as a gray squirrel peels bark from the dead elm tree in the yard, hanging upside-down like a nuthatch.
March 6, 2008
Back below freezing. Some four to five inches of snowpack remain, but every tree stands at the center of a dark wheel of melted earth.
March 5, 2008
A sky of shifting gray. This is basement-flooding weather. I crack out the harmonica, hoping that no one will hear it above the creek.
March 4, 2008
Rain and fog. A robin drops into the barberry bush, tut-tutting. Up in the woods, two deer stand with their heads buried in the soft snow.
March 3, 2008
When angels announce the coming of spring, they use flutes: faint calls of tundra swans filter down from above the rose-tinged clouds.
March 2, 2008
Clear, cold, and very quiet. A distant train whistle is picked up and repeated by a screech owl. The incremental progress of the moon.