Just inside the woods, the soft clucks of a hen turkey trailed by a single chick. A thrush song sounds like a threnody—slow, sad notes.
wood thrush
6/13/2010
The air is close, but it gets even closer: first a shower, then a torrent. The wood thrush falls silent. The doe flicks water from her ears.
6/1/2010
The tulip tree’s enormous flowers are opening, yellow and orange petals dripping nectar, accompanied by the wood thrush’s choir of one.
5/25/2010
Wood thrushes dart back and forth; three squirrel species briefly converge. My yard is less comprehensible to me than a street in Bangkok.
5/3/2010
Mid-morning, through the screen door, faint bell-like notes. I put the phone down and rush out into the rain. The wood thrush is back.
9/23/2009
At first light, the soft wickering of migrant wood thrushes. A deer snorts three times, and suddenly I’m seeing a bear in every shadow.
8/28/2009
Another overcast morning, with wind and the sound of trucks out of the east. Two thrushes and a gnatcatcher move silently through the lilac.
7/23/2009
Come hummingbird and bring some glitter to this damp gray morning, buzz around the bergamot, pizzazz at the beebalm’s one bedraggled bloom.
7/19/2009
7/10/2009
6/29/2009
5/30/2009
5/1/2009
Warm rain. The wood thrushes have returned to sing at the edge of the woods for another year. It’s almost possible to believe in redemption.