Overcast and cold, with a red-bellied woodpecker’s ceaseless whinnying. The old crabapple tree is red and ready to open for sunshine and bees.
crabapple
Cold and gray. A commotion of wings by the springhouse where breakfast eludes a Cooper’s hawk. He sits in the crabapple ruffling his feathers.
Foggy and damp on the last day of regular firearms deer season. The limbs of the old crabapple glow blueish green with lichen.
Half an hour after sunrise, birds crowd into the crabapple beside the spring, flitting quick as thought through the network of branches.
Unseasonably warm. The first half of a song sparrow’s song. Two titmice in the crabapple swipe their bills back and forth on their branches.
Rain and fog. Gray-green lichen glows on tree trunks in the woods and on every twisted branch of the old crabapple beside the springhouse.
Under heavy clouds, the big crabapple tree’s first blossoms are beginning to open. A honeybee makes a close inspection of my shirt.
Snow fine as fingerprint powder; it’s almost zero. Two cardinals and a jay in the crabapple tree wait their turn to drink from the spring.
From the other house, the squeak of a cloth on window glass. Juncos forage under the crabapple. The thermometer inches up toward unfreezing.
Cold air, warm sun. Two male towhees tweet at each other in the lilac. The old crabapple is coming into bloom, as shockingly pink as ever.
Fog rising from from the valley breaks over the treetops like silent surf. The weak sun finds hints of scarlet under the crabapple leaves.
The old crabapple next to the springhouse is in full bloom, a mass of shocking pink abuzz with insects. The sharp snap of a phoebe’s beak.
Leaves blow backward, signalling storms to come. Fallen crabapple petals litter the ground between the cattails like bloody thumbprints.
The old crabapple tree next to the springhouse has pulled it off again, blossoming wildly. The catbird scat-sings from its purple depths.