April 17: Beaked Hazelnut

Doing some yard work around my office, we came upon a Beaked Hazelnut bush in bloom. The almost-microscopic pink blossoms are the female flower, and the phallic catkins are the male flower. (And I think that's part of my finger, bottom right, fondling the catkin.)

Almost missed--
beauty on a very small scale,
thus all the more valued.

April 16: Watching warblers through the office window

Far from the swaying palms of Florida where we last saw them, a handful of bright yellow, palm-sized Palm Warblers moved through the pussy willows outside my office this gray afternoon. One of spring's first returning warblers, the Palm adds a much-needed note of color to the still-bleak foliage. They also wag their tails as the flit and glean among the branches, an endearing trait.

Bobbing warblers,
early yellow blossoms.
Wistful, I watch from inside.

April 15: Horror

Following the news of the bomb blasts at the Boston Marathon, reading stories of indescribable horror. Why does it always shock us to learn, over and over again, that such evil exists in the world?

I've been frantically looking around for things to offer comfort--the season's first local Osprey, birdsong outside my office, learning that a poet whose work first inspired me to write poetry as a teenager (Sharon Olds) has won the Pulitzer Prize, praise from a Board member for work well done. But these are small things compared to people's lives.

Soaring Osprey, returned,
and singing sparrows--
sometimes this isn't enough.

April 14: In the studio

Spent all day in the writing studio that my husband and I rent in one of the renovated mill buildings in downtown Camden. If I'd stayed home, I'd have found myself doing laundry and watching the Masters, allowed myself to be distracted by today's NYT crossword on my iPad. Here, I got accomplished what I needed to, while in the background like a white noise machine, the river roared over the waterfall that used to power the mill.

River, oak, mill, mountain--
who's to say which of these
has more significance?

April 13: Rain stops, clouds begin to lift

Blue sky's open eye
peers down through rain clouds
at cars crawling below.

April 12: A little spring snow

It happens every year, and we always express shock; you'd think we didn't know better. It always snows at least once in April. Even after the crocus have bloomed, peepers chorus among the cattails, and robins chortle in our back yards again, even after teenagers have been running around town in shorts for a week and someone has been considering swimming in the lake two days after official Ice Out, even after all that full-on spring-y stuff... the potential for snowfall has not diminished. And sure enough, today: ice pellets interspersed with rain and big wet flakes.

Full-blown flurries
while we watch the Masters,
envy its azaleas, lush greens.

April 10: Beech leaves

I thought at first it was a flowering tree shining in the forest as I drove back roads to Belfast, but it was a beech tree still holding on to last year's pale leaves, which reflected the morning light.

Last year's leaves still shiver
on the spring beech.
Hard to let go of the past.

April 9: Vultures on a roof, and...

Leaving work tonight, I noticed several dark silhouettes lined up atop the roof of a neighboring house. As I watched, one took flight and soared over the lawn: a Turkey Vulture!

The vultures often circle above this part of the river in late afternoon. Perhaps the damp weather had grounded them. Or perhaps there was something dead in the yard. Altogether five or six birds perched in a row there, one or two occasionally leaving for a short flight, their dark, hulking forms rather ominous in the grey light.

Vultures perch, wait
for the rain to stop.
I am alive.

******

AND...
This is my 1,000th post! If this weren't National Poetry Month, I might take a little break from posting. (Maybe I will anyway...) Here's what I've got coming up for poetry readings:

• Thursday, April 11, Rockland Public Library, 6:30 pm reading with Elizabeth Tibbetts and Dave Morrison
• Thursday, April 18, Lithgow Library in Augusta, 6:00 pm reading/music with poet Dave Morrison and musicians Anna and David Patterson
• Monday, April 22, 2013 Inauguration Poet Richard Blanco will read at Camden Hills Regional HS, 7:00 pm, tickets $10/$5 for students--don't miss this!
• Wednesday, April 24, Rockport Public Library, 6:00 pm reading ("Birds and Spring")
• Friday, June 14, Owl and Turtle Bookstore in Camden, 6:00 pm reading with seven other poets from the new "Take Heart" poetry anthology
• Monday, June 17, Carver Library in Searsport, 6:30 pm reading with fellow "Take Heart" poets Elizabeth Tibbetts, Linda Buckmaster, and Carl Little 

There are a lot of readings going on now, so please get out and support your local poets! We truly appreciate it. 

April 8: First phoebe of spring

The first thing I heard as I arrived at work this morning was the two-note song of the phoebe, and immediately my day improved. It's not the prettiest song--just a raspy "fee-bee" repeated over and over--nor is the phoebe, a simple, dapper gray and white flycatcher, the most striking of songbirds. But the bird's arrival shouts "Spring!" into the mild morning air.

Not long after, my husband emailed excitedly from his office that he too had heard his first phoebe of the season. Our pleasures are simple this time of year--we just want Mother Nature to keep reminding us that warmer weather, green leaves, flowers, and birds are slowly but surely returning.

First phoebe's song,
wasp exploring sunlit eaves.
Can you feel it in the air?

April 7: Rooster

The friend I was staying with complained about a neighbor's rooster that begins to crow every day at 5 a.m. But though I listened, all I heard were doves cooing, woodpeckers at the feeder, a trilling junco...

Somewhere a rooster crows
but all I hear
is my own heart beating.

April 6: Out on the town

Walking through the bustling streets of Portland in the late afternoon, gulls wheeling overhead in full, spring sunlight, my arms around two dear friends, happy from the day's adventures, the night's adventures still ahead of us...

Buzz of beer and sidewalk bustle--
this day's last light shines
just for us.