Below freezing still, and the sky more clear than not. Up on the ridge, a hermit thrush is singing: faint chimes, as if some gate to paradise had a doorbell.
hermit thrush
Overcast with a soundscape ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous: hermit thrush, tom turkey, a gnat mistaking my ear for a flower.
The tulip trees have burst their buds—a gray-green haze. Hermit thrush in my left ear, thunder in my right.
Sunlight softened by high-altitude haze. The hermit thrush is still around, dreamily singing up on the ridge, ignoring the boorish wren.
Clear at dawn. A pale slice of moon in the treetops, and below, the ethereal song of a hermit thrush.
Dawn gives a rust-red belly to the clouds. Over the stream, I’m astonished to hear the ethereal notes of a hermit thrush song.
A hermit thrush lands beside the porch and sings: that eldritch almost-whisper, spirit of the forest. Church bells. A distant chainsaw.
First light. A rabbit in the yard vanishes when it stops moving. Over the rain, I can just make out the soft, fey notes of a hermit thrush.