Mid-morning sun: I’m almost baking until the wind blows, cool as midnight, the chitter of goldfinches interrupted by a raven’s cronk.
April 22, 2010
Every day is the earth’s birthday. The largest peony plant, though still uncurling, already sports ten small planets midwived by ants.
April 21, 2010
A scarlet bough at the woods’ edge: I peer through binoculars at the first red maple keys. Deer straggle by in their ragged spring coats.
April 20, 2010
Sun filtered by thin cirrostratus clouds. The hawk’s shadow is soft as a squirrel’s tail, but it still sets off all the alarms.
April 19, 2010
What makes the spring peepers start calling in the middle of a morning, with sun so strong I can see the faint pollen filming the floor?
April 18, 2010
The French lilac whitening into blossom, its once-smooth profile smashed by last October’s snowstorm, finally looks wild against the woods.
April 17, 2010
A brief blaze of sun through a hole in the clouds. The bridal wreath bush is in full bloom, measuring the wind with stiff white fingers.
April 16, 2010
The mayapples next to the creek have opened their umbrellas. We do need rain. Already, the top branches of the crabapple have caught fire.
April 15, 2010
Squirrels grapple on a skinny branch 20 feet up. One falls to the ground with a loud plop and races off, sun shining through its tail.
April 14, 2010
Thick ground fog, one degree below freezing. The trees grow sharper as the sun begins to blur. Please don’t flower yet, I tell the oaks.
April 13, 2010
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.
April 12, 2010
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.
April 11, 2010
A groundhog among the daffodils rears up on its haunches like the very large squirrel that it is. A tiger swallowtail careens past.
April 10, 2010
Drifts of white on the springhouse roof: not fallen blossoms, but last night’s pellet snow. Tree creaks join the dawn chorus.