April 30: Shadbush and cloud

Despite my office windows being shut against today's chill, I could hear the song of a warbler singing somewhere outside. So I put on my coat, grabbed my binoculars, and wandered around looking for him. Around the back of the building, I was confronted with the glorious sight of a shadbush tree in full bloom, one or two of its white petals twirling through the air on the slight breeze. The sun was high in the sky; everything shone, even the single cloud drifting past. Finding the yellow-rumped warbler singing in a nearby alder was almost anti-climactic.

Stretching in the sun,

shadbush reaches for the clouds.

Warbler sings below.

April 29: Bones and blossoms

My husband and I went looking for a some birds today and found a few other things besides. In the woods surrounding Weskeag Marsh, we came across the old bones of what we think must have been a moose--or a very lost (and large) cow. The bones were huge, scattered across both sides of the trail, picked clean by time. Curved bows of ribs, puzzle pieces of vertebrae, leg bones like clubs--such odd objects to come across as the woods come to life: coltsfoot blooming, skunk cabbage unfurling amid the tangle of alders, palm warblers flitting along the marsh's edge.

Amid the old bones
rise again flowers, unfurl
again the green leaves.

Moose boneyard

Skunk Cabbage

Coltsfoot

April 28: First warblers

A few warblers have been around for a little while--yellow-rumped, pine, palm, the odd sighting of other species here and there, and in southern Maine, the discovery of a hooded warbler, an unusual visitor that doesn't often wander this far north. Very early this morning, as I was jogging up the street to catch a ride to an all-day land conservation conference--as usual, I was a little late--I made myself even more late when I stopped to listen to my first black-and-white warbler of the year. That sweet, high-pitched "squeaky wheel" song was clearly audible over the roar of the still-high river.

The next few weeks should herald the arrival of many more warblers. I think I'm going to start walking to work--a real possibility now that I don't have to lug a laptop to and fro anymore. This time of year, each day's returning birds is new cause for excitement, so I'm betting that I'm going to be strolling in even later than ever, having paused along the way for each chip and trill.

I'm late yet again,
steps slowed by a "squeaky wheel"--
welcome back, warbler!

Female black-and-white warbler. Photo courtesy of Wolfgang Wander via Wikimedia Commons.

April 27: Moon through trees

Criss-crossed by branches,
the moon's a stained glass window
on the universe.

April 26: Willow

This morning as I was walking into a meeting, these two willows were shining in the early light, emanating that incandescent glow of spring leaves. I thought of long, golden tresses and Rapunzel. I thought of how when I was a kid, a willow bough made the best "whip" to use when I pretended I was a horse. The willow tree image that used to be carved in old gravestones came to mind, and I wondered how such a glorious tree came to have such a melancholy association. Weeping willows--why not shining hair willows? The Joan Armatrading song "Willow" began playing on my "head radio": "I'll be your shelter in a storm, I'll be your willow, your willow..." and I wondered how much shelter a willow really provides. The willow next door flings its branches all over our yard whenever there's wind, and one of its larger branches actually wiped out our neighbor's power line in a big storm last year. But these trees, they inspired me to dig out my camera, take a photo. And then I went into my meeting.

Arboreal muse,
no wonder your boughs hang down--
poetic baggage.

April 25: New moon and Venus

Driving home from an exquisite meal at Hartstone Inn tonight, pleasantly full and happy, we looked out the window and there's the new moon, low and bright in the western sky, a big white bowl full of sky. And to the right of this bright crescent hangs shining Venus, the Evening Star, the candle at the table.

Night sky's a banquet.
Main course: the young crescent moon,
side order of stars.

April 24: Dandelions

As the lawn greens, dandelions begin to show their shaggy golden heads. I don't know what I have against them. When I was a kid, we used to eat the greens, steamed like chard or fresh in a salad, and my grandmother would pay me to pick bags full of the flowers so she could make dandelion wine. But I love the green of my little patch of lawn so much, with its bordering gardens of cultivated flowers and herbs, that the invasion of dandelions sends me in a daily plucking frenzy this time of year. Today, the annual battle began.

A dollar per pound.
I never understood how
flowers became wine.

April 23: New leaves in the rain

Over the weekend when we were checking out the shops of Portsmouth, I found myself drawn over and over to green things: a sage green fleece, a leaf green tee shirt, a chartreuse cardigan, a necklace of green leaves with little pearl flowers. This morning I was moved to wear an uncharacteristically bold (for me) print dress of big green and brown flowers and leaves. When I looked out the rain-streaked window, I realized what was going on. Along the river, shining in the rain, the popples and maples unfurl their bright green leaves. And I'm trying to wear them! Perhaps that's my way of taking on some of that renewing energy--"that force that through the green fuse drives the flower," to quote poet Dylan Thomas.

I want to be spring--
that neon green of new leaves,
hair washed clean by rain.

April 22: Carmina Burana

My husband and I experienced a performance of "Carmina Burana" performed by the USM Concert Band and Chorus in Portland this afternoon--the perfect way to spend a rainy Earth Day. This stirring piece of music was composed by Carl Orff in the 1930s, based on a set of 13th century secular German poems collected in 1847 by Johann Andreas Schmeller (according to my program)--a veritable palimpsest of artistic traditions.
 
While I was familiar with the intro piece (O Fortuna) from its use in a significant scene in one of my favorite movies, "Excalibur," I had no idea that that was just a small part of a 25-part cantata focused on the lusty energies of spring, eating and drinking in a tavern, and, well, sex. Apparently those 13th century poems were written by defrocked monks.
 
Our enjoyment was enhanced by a translation included in the program, which helped us figure out that the tenor soloist's only part was a song about being a roasted swan about to be eaten. He had a beautiful voice--as did all three soloists--so this seemed a bit unfair, but perhaps singing the part of the cooked swan in "Carmina Burana" is considered a plum role in the voice performance world.
 
Spring's glory rides in
on percussion crescendos,
a chorus of love.
 

April 21: Out of state

We traveled way out of Maine today, all the way over the border to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Things are different down south. For one thing, check out the exotic-looking iris, above. There's nothing blooming like that back home yet. And the streets are lined with fragrant flowering trees, crabapples and cherries. It felt like summer here, with the cobbled sidewalks of historic downtown filled with tourists in flip flops and sundresses, street musicians on every corner. Even more exciting, they seem to value poetry here in a very public way. We noticed these Ambushed by Poetry signs all over town.

In the sunny shop

Bob Dylan's singing for us,

our weekend away.

 

April 20: Splashes of pink

This is the week when flowers began busting out all over. In the neighbor's yard, over the fence, I can just glimpse the top branches of her always-spectacular azalea, which went from tiny buds to full bloom in two days flat. By her front door, a pink magnolia's delicate blossoms on still-bare grey branches glow in the afternoon sun. In our own yard, a single, odd, rose-colored bulb of some kind (a hyacinth, maybe?) has suddenly opened its petals in an otherwise still barren patch of garden. Pink is such an alluring color in nature, and right now, so refreshing for the eye, these splashes of color transfusing into a slowly-awakening world.

These early petals--
alluring pink of lips, skin,
rosy newborn life.