Overcast. A black vulture drifts back and forth, occasionally flapping its wings—which sets off a squirrel, vigilant against hawks.
Plummer’s Hollow
Two faded contrails in an otherwise clear sky. A cardinal sings his spring song, which bears a very strong resemblance to his winter song.
Again this morning around 10:30, for the fifth day in a row, a Cooper’s hawk calls up in the woods. In the hawk’s mind, it might be a song.
Overcast and still. The gobbling of a wild turkey up in the field echoes off the ridge—a startling thing to hear once, let alone twice.
Sun silvering black birch twigs. From the woods beyond, the call of a Cooper’s hawk. It can’t be long till the first shadbush blooms.
Birds keep landing on the empty feeder, like kids in a home with an unpaid cable bill staring at the TV. The wind pages through my notebook.
Holes in the clouds by late morning. Field sparrows trill almost non-stop. My mother says she can smell my coffee way up in the woods.
A sunny morning foreclosed upon by leaden clouds. The phoebe continues to rant from atop a black walnut sapling, marking time with his tail.
The almost Kabbalistic way a few syllables of thunder have birthed a whole lexicon of torrent. Fog takes a heavy eraser to the trees.
From three directions, the white noise of water. A wet vole scuttles down the walk and disappears under the porch.
A break between showers—enough for the ground almost to dry out and the clouds almost to break. The red-winged blackbird clears his throat.
So much song from a single robin perched 80 feet up in a black locust! Down below, juncos comb through the prone stiltgrass for seeds.
My seed order has arrived, so on a cold, wet morning I’m not seeing the yard but a fenced and edible paradise—that dream of my youth.
A gray day. My fever broken, I notice that the red maple down along the woods’ edge that had blossomed too soon two weeks ago is bare again.