After 24 hours of rain, water streams from the mountain’s every pore. The daffodils’ last trumpet points toward the forest.
daffodils
Sunday April 17, 2022
Looking through a series of thin screens: swirling snowflakes, greening lilac, yellow forsythia, bare trees, holey clouds.
Saturday April 16, 2022
Rainy, breezy and intermittently bright. The zigzag flight of a phoebe finding breakfast above the daffodils.
Tuesday April 12, 2022
Warm rain. Phoebe and robin drown out the night chant of peepers. All the daffodils’ cups have turned bottoms-up.
Sunday April 10, 2022
Snowflakes dance wildly but all the daffodils can do is nod and sway. O sweet Canada, sings the sparrow.
Tuesday April 20, 2021
The early miniature daffodils are mostly done, hanging limp as burst balloons. Two chipping sparrows hop among them, pecking at the dirt.
Saturday April 10, 2021
Overcast with 100% chance of yellow: daffodils, forsythia, spicebush. A yellow-bellied sapsucker looking all tapped out.
Wednesday April 07, 2021
After yesterday’s warmth, the daffodils are out by the hundreds, along with the less-celebrated bittercress, that lacy and delicate invader.
Thursday April 01, 2021
Fat snowflakes fall on the daffodils’ down-turned cups, while a towhee chants—according to the time-worn birders’ mnemonic—Drink! Drink!
Wednesday March 31, 2021
The sort of rain that makes the world puddle-wonderful. Around the broken old dog statue, the daffodils have drawn their yellow hoop.
Tuesday March 30, 2021
Crystal clear sky. Hundreds of daffodil buds look ready to open this afternoon. From up in the woods, a cry like a strangled crow.
Sunday March 28, 2021
Rain and the first daffodils: April has come early. Fog appears and disappears among the trees. The robin unspools a silver thread of song.
Tuesday April 21, 2020
Among the faded early daffodils, one white narcissus blooms in the round flower bed with its broken statue of a dog, still holding point.
Friday April 17, 2020
Another cold, overcast day. Daffodils and forsythia begin to grate with their unrelenting yellows. Even the Carolina wren sounds querulous.