At 8:02 a patter of rain too brief to even darken the sidewalk. Nuthatch, field sparrow. A crow bleats like a lamb with a hand on its neck.
Plummer’s Hollow
The Cooper’s hawk swoops down from the woods’ edge into the ditch and dips his beak again and again in its cold clear blood.
A groundhog among the daffodils rears up on its haunches like the very large squirrel that it is. A tiger swallowtail careens past.
Drifts of white on the springhouse roof: not fallen blossoms, but last night’s pellet snow. Tree creaks join the dawn chorus.
Time has slowed again with the return of cold weather. The bleeding-hearts in my garden are huddling on half-grown stems.
The miniature daffodils around the dog statue have shriveled in the night. Turkeys display at the edge of the field, reversible blooms.
Shirtsleeves at dawn. I rub my eyes at the new blossom-clouds, at green fogs of leaves. It’s too sudden, a premature ejaculation of spring.
Bumblebees joust, and a sun-drugged honeybee wanders the folds of my jeans. Spring’s parade devolves into a mob, everything blooming at once.
Yellow at daybreak: forsythia, daffodils, the spicebush by the springhouse, a flock of goldfinches… what else? The sun crests the ridge.
A hermit thrush lands beside the porch and sings: that eldritch almost-whisper, spirit of the forest. Church bells. A distant chainsaw.
Such a startling and ridiculous sound, the turkey’s gobble—like gargling with marbles. And then a blue-headed vireo’s quiet soliloquy.
Sunrise, and a red-winged blackbird calls twice: sound like a blood-shot sun half-submerged in dark feathers, part trill, part gurgle.
The springhouse phoebe has a mate. He sings from the crabapple while she flutters under the eaves, bill thrusting into the old nest.
Clear, clear, clear: say the same thing often enough, the cardinal knows, and one day you’ll be right. The east is red with maple blossoms.