Wind throbs in the treetops; the birdcall app thinks it’s a drumming grouse. Juncos twitter from the lilac, which has just burst its buds—a green apparition against the brown woods.
lilac
March 31, 2024
Sunrise past, the sky goes gray. The damp woods smell of earth and leaf-mold. The old lilac bristles with bright green buds.
March 7, 2024
An hour past sunrise, bright spots begin appearing in the clouds. A lull in the birdsong. I notice the old lilac’s haze of green buds.
November 11, 2023
A few patches of frost in the yard as the sun clears the ridgetop. Juncos move through the rambling old lilac, its last few leaves faded nearly to yellow.
November 2, 2023
25F at sunrise. A ruffed grouse—the first I’ve seen since last winter—flushes from under the lilac. Perhaps the population is beginning to recover from West Nile Virus? I relish the small thunder of its wings.
October 15, 2023
Overcast but brightening. Snow birds are moving through the half-bare lilac, exchanging notes. Titmice and chickadees forage in the thinning birches.
September 3, 2023
Clear and not as cool. A catbird mews from the lilac. Rays of sun in the canopy are astir with gossamer wings.
May 20, 2023
The snap of a gnatcatcher’s beak behind the lilac, and just beyond, a wood pewee’s melismatic drawl. The sun glimmers briefly through a hole in the clouds.
April 22, 2023
In the half-light, the first white blossoms on the old French lilac look like snow. When the whippoorwill pauses for breath, I can hear the first wood thrush’s ethereal song.
April 11, 2023
The rambling old lilac is twice as green as it was yesterday, beginning to glow as the sun climbs out of some early-morning murk.
March 10, 2023
Flurries in lieu of a sunrise; the ground is already white again. A faint, yellow-green wash on the rambling old lilac—buds are beginning to swell.
February 7, 2023
The squirrel who de-husks walnuts atop the wall next to the lilac stops short when she sees that her piles have been swept away. She noses the spots, tail flickering above her like a gray flame.
January 29, 2023
Dull mid-morning light—the threadbare snowpack is brighter than the clouds. A titmouse sounds the predator alarm and a squirrel cleaning off a walnut climbs a few feet higher into the lilac.
December 3, 2022
Cold rain. Four chickadees in a high-speed chase around the yard pause in the lilac for a vociferous exchange of views.