April 30: Drive-by

swirl of vultures and crows
in the field below
something we can't see

April 29: Meta

what you’re really saying

hidden among hashtags 

#modernromance

April 28: Date night

behind the movie theatre

calls of woodcocks

Venus growing brighter

April 27: Found Haiku

Overhead on the airport PA while I was traveling home from DC:

If you lost a key

at the Chick-Fil-A

please visit info desk C

April 24 - 26: Washington, D.C.

I’m in Washington D.C. for several days to lobby for support of the Endangered Species Act, among other things, on behalf of Defenders of Wildlife. 

Department of State

old white sycamore

leaning into traffic

our nation’s capitol

cherry blossoms

heaped on the sidewalks

learning how to lobby

against extinction

church clock’s chime

April 23: Flying

so small from the air

the island 

where my heart is

April 22: Earth Day

telling me not to

she would pick mayflowers

earth day

April 21: A day

going on like that
some days even the cardinal
is too much to take

April 20: Ospreys

how high the river 

pair of ospreys circling

the old mill’s smokestack

April 19: Color

bowl of clementines

forced forsythia flowers—

longing for spring

April 18: Cat time

morning sun 

cat hairs drifting 

in my coffee

April 17: Birthday

the fallen tree

shifted by flood waters

another birthday

April 16: Chicken

neighbor’s black chicken

strutting on the snow

spring pastoral

April 15: Bowerbird

Today at the Northeast Natural History Conference, ornithologist Richard Prum spoke in support of  Darwin’s idea that beauty in nature has evolved for its own sake, resulting from conscious choice, rather than the prevailing theory that ornamention must also offer some greater benefit resulting from natural selection. I’m not expressing it well, so I recommend his book THE EVOLUTION OF BEAUTY. 

mysteries of desire—

bright blue objects 

in the bowerbird’s bower

April 14: Sleet

Slow drive in sleet.

If birds, he’d be a swift,

I’d be a waxwing.

April 13: Driving stories

roadside memorials

counting crows

all the way to Vermont

April 12: Bear Pond

private beach—

the pond still locked in

by ice

April 11: Frost

over the mountain 

in time to melt the frost

rising sun

April 10: Gallery

art gallery window

framing a flock of pigeons

across blue sky

April 9: First flowers

that point in early spring

even skunk cabbage

is a welcome flower

April 8: FOY

for a few minutes

it feels like spring

first phoebe calling

FOY=birder’s shorthand for “first of year,” first bird noted of a migrant species

April 7: Sparrow

even as snow falls

song sparrows singing

those emotions

April 6: Spring snow

April snowfall

we’d have thought it beautiful

three months ago

April 5: Chipmunk

the short life

of a chipmunk

this floating world

April 4: White

white crocus

looks too much like snow

April showers

April 3: Brook trout

fishing hole

before the osprey returns

casting for trout

April 2: Green Moon

stained glass window

rising moon

green then blue

April 1: Easter morning

resurrection

crow eats the dead mouse

then flies away