Woodpeckers drumming at sunrise. It occurs to me that they might not be telegraphing “I am here” so much as verifying that the world is.
Plummer’s Hollow
A cold wind at sunrise. Daffodils nod, while the forsythia shakes its yellow fingers in a vaguely apotropaic gesture. Hard frost on the way.
Thick fog and silence, punctuated by the low, almost infrasonic throbs of a drumming grouse. The nasal cries of a fish crow pass overhead.
Rain. Two deer in a high-speed chase crash through the laurel, the one in pursuit grunting like a buck gone into rut eight months early.
The springhouse phoebe has already found a mate. They take turns fluttering up under the eaves to refurbish the 30-year-old nest.
Wind riffles the wild onion tops sprouting from a crack in the walk. Down at the end of the old corral, the pussy willow’s in bloom.
Sound is out of the east: a ululating quarry truck, a train whistle that won’t shut up. Clouds thin just where the sun is—a sudden glow.
The spicebush is a haze of yellow beyond the springhouse. Another too-warm morning. What will be left of spring by warbler time?
Myrtle, speedwell, bittercress: my garden is a crashed party of uninvited blooms. But as Orwell noted, spring in general is illicit.
A brown-headed cowbird perches, as always, at the top of the tallest tree in the yard to maximize the reach of his one-second gurgle.
Ground fog up in the field glows faintly orange in the sunrise. Under the old dog statue, a cartoon yelp of yellow: the first daffodil.
At dawn, scattered drops—a passing shower. Spring peepers in the corner of the field call in spurts, like an engine running out of fuel.
A newly-returned phoebe sings from each familiar perch. Up at the other house, the sound of breaking glass. The sky turns white.
A warm morning. Over by the well, garter snakes thread themselves into a throbbing knot. Some animal starts bumping under the house.