April 7: On the Move

Thanks to the miracles of modern technology, I'm writing this blog entry while waiting for my car to get its 30,000-mile tune-up. Even Bath Subaru's waiting room has free wi fi! I spent this morning before my car appointment on the move running some errands in the Portland area. On the drive down, notable bird sightings included an osprey and a turkey. The hawk watch on Bradbury Mountain in Pownal reported that the wind had shifted this morning, so now southwesterly--just what the hawks want to boost their migration mileage. By 11:45 they had tallied 50 birds and that was just about when things were "really starting to pick up." Before I learned this, however, I had noticed many more birds soaring overhead as I drove back north. I picked out three, maybe four, eagles, a bunch of vultures, and two ospreys. And that's just what could be seen directly overhead while I sped along 295 between South Portland and Bath--imagine what else is out there following the ridge lines and thermals on this clear day. There's also an osprey back at the nest in the Route One median in Bath.

When we were up on Bradbury Mountain the other day for a few hours, at one point an osprey flew directly overhead, giving us all beautiful views of its brown and white plumage, crooked wings, and fingered wing tips. I can picture it in my head as clearly as a snapshot. But what struck me most as I think back now was its gaze--that steely-eyed focus on the distant horizon ahead. We humans directly below on the open ledge meant nothing to this bird. Nor the houses, the roads, the streams of cars, the smoke of brushfires. The osprey was on a mission, a mission encoded in its very genes. Its steady flight northward was an inner directive powered by the essential, awe-inspiring force of Nature itself. A force even more miraculous to me than wi fi!

Osprey flying north
impelled by some inner force.
I'm moved to follow.

April 6: A Spot of Color

As I pulled out of the driveway this morning, giving my front lawn one last look, I was delighted to see two unexpected spots of color amid the inchoate sprigs and twigs of what will one day be a lush flower garden again. On the right side of the lawn, a single little daffodil added a cheery touch of yellow. Among the perennials on the left, a primrose once again surprised me not only by surviving the winter but by blooming before anything else had barely pushed forth incipient leaves. Not bad for a plant that I bought at Hannaford on a whim a few years ago. The tiny hot pink blossom was a button of color against the bare earth of the raked bed. Once the other plants leaf out, the primrose will be hidden, so it's taking advantage of its time to shine. It was certainly appreciated this morning as I paused on my way to work, roused from my usual early morning daze.

Not a host, but one
golden daffodil, primrose.
Ah, longed for color!

April 5: Another Season Begins

Hallowed rite of spring:
crack of ball on bat; third out--
Red Sox beat Yankees!

Last night a new baseball season began, complete with a lot of pageantry, a deep-seated rivalry, and a satisfying come-from-behind win: Red Sox versus Yankees on opening night at Fenway. Both teams received the courtesy of a full introduction, from the bat boys and massage therapists on up to the starting pitchers (Beckett, Sabathia). Old Johnny Pesky made an appearance, Lowell got a standing ovation (as a back-up player), a smiling Pedro threw the first pitch, Neil Diamond came out to sing "Sweet Caroline" in person in the 8th inning, and the Sox won 9-7 despite being down 5-1 at one point. Of course, it all meant staying up till midnight, because Red Sox-Yankees games always run at least four hours. And it all came back in those four hours--the thrill of this placid but nerve-wracking sport: watching your favorite players make good plays, a 7-pitch 1-2-3 inning, the solid thwack of a well-hit ball, an unexpected homer, the ethereal green field under the lights, the crowd chanting "Yankees suck!" and the anticipation as Papelbon pitches for the final out of the ninth... We were all yawning in the office today, but also smiling.

April 4: Easter Sun

As I type, the sun is just dipping below the treeline across the river. Thank you, Sun, for such a lovely holiday! The last rays diffuse through branches, and now I'm seeing spots from trying to maintain eye contact with the blinding orb.

After a lovely Easter brunch with my parents at the Hartstone Inn this morning, my husband and I decided to burn off our strawberry crepes with creme Anglaise, lobster and asparagus quiche, and coconut cake by hiking up Beech Hill. Even with the inevitable breeze at the top, the air still felt like summer. A strange summer, however, with the fields still dry and dead-looking and no leaves on the trees. And still very few birds. All we saw from where we stood were the local pair of ravens, some vultures heading southward, and the ethereal pale shape of a "grey ghost"--a male harrier soaring low over the fields in search of lunch. Curiously, no other hawks, though I'm sure today was another good day for raptor migration. Returning to our car, we saw our first local phoebe silently wagging its tail in a nearby tree. And several local teenagers in short-shorts, tank tops, and flip flops--who could blame them for wanting to pretend summer had arrived, expose that sun-starved flesh?

With our friend Brian, we soaked up some more rays and watched a few more birds at Weskeag Marsh: blue-winged teals and other ducks, an eagle, a great egret trailing lacy breeding plumage, several hysterical-sounding killdeer. The glare on the salt pannes made it difficult to see well. But hard to complain, when sunlight has been so hard to come by.

Finally, at home on a Sunday afternoon, the day of rest, I got my folding chair out of the shed for the first time since last fall and sat on the back porch reading a book until the sun began to hit the treeline. The rushing music of the river muted all other neighborhood sounds except a squirrel scolding from the yard, and I indulged in an hour or so of rare and luxurious relaxation of my favorite kind. And bug-free at that. Good night, Sun.

Real peace is simple:
good Norwegian mystery,*
a patch of sunlight.

*I'm reading Jo Nesbo's The Redbreast. Nesbo is supposed to be Norway's version of Sweden's Henning Mankell, whose noir mystery thrillers I highly recommend to those who enjoy the genre.

April 3: Ice Cream and Frogs

We were in the Freeport area today, so we checked out the hawk watch for a few hours at Bradbury Mountain State Park in Pownal. On the short hike up, brown creepers, juncos, and phoebes sang. From the summit we--along with about ten other birders--watched kestrels zip past overhead, red tails shining in the sun. Sharp-shinned hawks flapped and glided in circles around us. In the distance, red-tailed hawks, an eagle, ospreys, turkey vultures, and a goshawk were picked out one by one by the official observers (and eventually us), each bird recognized by its silhouette and flight pattern. A pileated woodpecker called in the forest below us. Tree swallows darted past, the first I'd seen this year. A golden-crowned kinglet hopped in the branches of a nearby tree, crown flared. It was the kind of birding experience that gets my heart racing, and I had all intentions of writing a poem about it. However, as exciting as it was to see those raptors soaring by on their primeval quest to get north, and to see and/or hear other first-of-year birds, different signs of spring gave me today's "haiku moment."

First cone at Round Top:
two scoops with jimmies. Later,
first peeper chorus!

Friend and fellow poet Carl Little has a great spring poem called "Zones of Peeper," about driving around this time of year with the car window cracked open, passing through literal zones of frog song as you go past each vernal pool or wetland. For a moment, the sound pours over you, your heart thrills to it, and then it's gone. We only passed through one zone this evening, but the first one of the season is always the most exciting. Especially if you do so while finishing off an excellent almond joy and Indian pudding ice cream cone.

April 2: Fog Bank

As I drove from Camden to a meeting in Rockport, this morning seemed idyllic: warming air, birds singing, clear blue skies, that hopeful gleam of spring... But as I passed Hoboken Gardens on Route One, suddenly a giant cloud monster of a fog bank rose before me. The sun was working hard to dissipate it one strand at a time, but as I drove farther south, the light was blocked and fog surrounded me on all sides. Calling it a fog "bank" makes it sound like a solid object, but beyond its sheer bulk, this wall of cloud was moving eastward fast and loose, swirling strands of mist rising to dissipate in the sun's heat. It was as if the fog was trying to outrun the sunlight that was slowly but surely burning it away.

The old Carl Sandburg poem "Fog" came to mind:

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

But this fog colossus wasn't tiptoeing in on "little cat feet." More like something with big huge padded feet, like a cloud polar bear. Or maybe large birds, a dense flock of tundra swans, heavy and feathered...

Something that's nothing:
vapor erased by sunlight.
Misty metaphor.

Again I find myself inspired by the ephemeral, by something as insubstantial as fog. I remember my grandmother telling me that when she took flying lessons back in the 1930s (this was back in the days of open cockpit planes), she couldn't believe that when she stuck her hand out into the clouds, there was nothing there. Just as today, watching the mass of fog creep and twist its way up the coast, it was hard not to imagine it as alive in some way.

April 1: Calm Seas

I walked on the Rockland breakwater after work this afternoon with my friend Brian and his dog. It was truly the calm after the storm. Big wads of seaweed were strewn across the top of the breakwater, tossed there by recent high tides. Something big had clearly happened out there. But today the wide sky opened clear and blue above us, the sea calmly lapped the shore, the tide had pulled back to an unthreatening distance, and even the birds seemed mellow--except one insistent cardinal whose repetitive whistle sounded like a siren. We saw several loons pausing on their journey back to inland waters, some mergansers, eiders, and a small group of lingering long-tailed ducks carrying on a late afternoon chat. They seemed in no hurry to be heading northward. The air was mild, no breeze at all. Two biplanes flew over like we were in some weird nostalgic old movie. Looking back at the granite jetty as we were leaving, the long line of massive cut stones shone golden in the late light, stretching out like a delicate bridge to the lighthouse at the end.

Hold this memory:
loon's red eye gazing back, calm.
Blue skies, blue water.

Photo by Brian Willson

Simplistic, perhaps, but sometimes it's the most basic and ephemeral of images that stick with us the longest, something spotted along the road as we drove past at 50 MPH, a single bird glimpsed in a bush, the way the light shone for just one moment on a particular rock or tree.