Leap day. The sun comes out while snowflakes still circle the house. Around the old ruin of a dog statue, daffodils’ green fingertips.
daffodils
April 8, 2019
A winter wren warbles his spring song beside the springhouse, appropriately enough, where daffodils have just begun to open.
April 2, 2019
Neither hot nor cold, and the sun’s neither out nor in. The daffodil spears look just a little taller, and the moss maybe a bit more bright.
May 2, 2018
A squirrel emerges beside the one white miniature daffodil, just coming into bloom as the others shrivel. A Baltimore oriole’s glossy song.
April 27, 2018
The rain peters out, and the daffodils stop bobbing to its beat like headbangers. A gnatcatcher resumes its sallies from the lilac bush.
April 20, 2018
Bright sun, icy breeze. Between creaks of a tree, a turkey’s gobble: like the engine turning over in a clown car. Daffodils bob and sway.
April 14, 2018
The first daffodils point their ear-trumpets toward the forest: a tom turkey’s florid declarations, a blue-headed vireo’s quiet song.
March 27, 2018
Under a low cloud ceiling, the keening calls of waxwings. Daffodils have raised their green spears all around the broken statue of a dog.
March 30, 2017
Dismal and cold, like a November day—except for the daffodils, the field sparrow’s rising trill, the red maple blossoms about to burst.
March 29, 2017
A pair of phoebes flutter under the porch eaves, see me and the dog and retreat to a nearby branch. The first daffodils nod in the breeze.
April 7, 2016
Warmer, and the daffodils have once more managed to stand up. There goes the meter-reader’s white pickup, topped by a flashing orange light.
April 3, 2016
An inch of new snow and a bitter wind. Daffodils droop like old balloons. A white-throated sparrow’s song pauses and resumes one octave up.
March 30, 2016
The daffodils laid low by wind and cold are slowly righting themselves in the strong sunlight. From the east, the sound of heavy machinery.
March 19, 2016
The first daffodils are in bloom in the cool sunlight, facing in all directions from a tight huddle. The neighbors’ rooster crows and crows.