A spit of rain in my face at sunrise, despite the lack of clouds—classic April. It’s cold. The miniature daffodils have been blooming for a solid month.
sunrise
Red sunrise. To the south, the moon has gone flat on one side so it resembles a giant ear for the first crow to yell into when it created the world. The chanting phoebe clearly has no inkling.
A goldfinch foraging alone in the crown of a birch continues to warble, intonation rising and falling as if still in conversation with the flock. The sun muscles up through the ridgetop trees.
The briefest opening in the clouds for sunrise. The first brown thrasher drops by to sing a few bars. Then the squeaky wheels of goldfinches, converging on my mother’s feeders.
Red spreading from the clouds to the western ridge. Robin, cardinal, phoebe: the early-spring trio, joined by a downy woodpecker on percussion with a high-pitched dead limb.
Another clear, cold morning. Two mourning doves call back and forth, occasionally overlapping, as the sunlight inches down toward their perches.
Cold and still. The rising sun shines straight down the old woods road to illuminate the whitewashed springhouse, just three days past the equinox.
Blue above the cloud bank blocking the sunrise. At the woods’ edge, white-breasted nuthatches are having a free and frank exchange of views.
The sun finally clears the one, thin cloud above the horizon only to disappear into a thicket. The robin has taken a break, so the titmouse holds forth.
Thin clouds gone faintly pink. Under the endless robin song, a winter wren sings burbling accompaniment to the creek.
The sun climbs through bare trees while I’m not looking, lost in blue like the titmouse with his endless diatribe.
After a bright sunrise, the clouds move in, one settling among the trees. The creek sounds more sober now, and here and there, the grass is greening up.
At the end of a tunnel of shining twigs, the rising sun. A red-bellied woodpecker whinnies from the top of a locust tree. The furnace under my house rumbles to life.
Leap Day. The trees sway and clatter; winter is back. A small cloud turns pink.