Roar of the quarry in my left ear, burble of a wren in my right, and in the front yard a catbird sits in the lilac, silent, head swiveling.
Plummer’s Hollow
Botanically speaking, I’m sitting in Europe, staring at the New World. Over there it’s still mostly brown, and the birds sing more quietly.
Cold. A chipmunk’s steady tick. When I go back in, a half-dozen cherry petals precede me—random dance steps on the cherry-stained floor.
Morning like a tinted photo. Wood thrush song, the susurration of rain, a greenish-yellow haze of oak blossoms merging with the clouds.
Overcast and cold. The porch and yard are aglow with cherry blossoms, blown down by yesterday’s storms. A catbird mews from the springhouse.
Cherry blossoms are falling—an early-morning bumblebee. Dressed for a funeral, I sit listening to the first wood thrushes of the year.
Black cherries leaf out before flowering, but this morning I notice three white spots in the one across the road: budding caterpillar tents.
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.
A male starling—a rarity here—lands among the cherry blossoms, iridescent black feathers speckled with white. He gargles musically.
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.
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.
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.
Over the dawn fusillade of woodpeckers, I hear the distant gobbles of a turkey. Five deer graze below the house. The doves make moan.
Still cloudless, but the light lacks the crystal-clarity of previous mornings. Juncos all a-twitter, perhaps feeling the pull of the north.