March 9: Receding snow

Noticed that the day lily closest to the house, sheltered by the front step, has begun to emerge from the cold underground where it has lain dormant all winter, sending forth bright green tips that almost shine against the surrounding dead leaves and dirty snow.

As the snow recedes,
daylily shoots emerge.
I shiver.

March 8: Light

When I have a cold in the summer, my favorite home remedy is to fall asleep in the sun in my backyard and sweat it out. Home sick today, but with the yard still covered with crusty old snow, that wasn't an option. But it was mild enough to open the solid wood inner door to let the sun and light through the glass storm door. I wanted to curl up in it like a cat. My cat, however, preferred the couch.

Sunlight on the floor--
a honey lozenge
to soothe my cold.

March 7: Out the door

Even the cat (who is strictly an indoor cat) seems to be suffering from cabin fever.

Cat out the open door,
no hesitation
on the cold front step.

March 6: Afternoon flurries

If only these snowflakes
spilling through March air
were cherry blossoms.

March 5: One of those songs

Driving home after dinner with friends in Rockland, listening to a "slow dance" mix CD recently sent to me by a DJ friend. A song came on that was one of my favorites back in grad school over 20 years ago: "Wicked Game" by Chris Isaak. I used to put it on repeat and lie on the floor of my apartment while it played over and over, the plaintive guitar and his mellow croon touching the sensitive poet's soul that I was nurturing with both my MFA studies and a complex relationship I was in at the time.

Listening to it now made me think how as I've gotten older I don't respond to music as viscerally as in the high-emotion era of my youth living out those moments when, as musician Ani DiFranco sang, "Every pop song on the radio was suddenly speaking to me..."* So I turned it up loud and sang along as I drove the familiar streets home, recalling the exquisite, bittersweet angst of my mid-20s as I did so.

This song takes me back.
Ah, to be 24 again.
And yet so grateful I'm not.


* Lyrics from another old favorite, her song "Superhero," released in 1996

March 4: Pairs of ducks

Spent the day with a bird guide friend exploring the southern Maine coast, starting at Nubble Light in York and working our way up through Wells. According to him, numbers of geese and black ducks are increasing in the marshes, meaning these waterfowl are making their way northward. Offshore, loons are beginning to molt into breeding plumage and get their spots back. Eiders coo and posture, begin to pair off, as do other ducks: goldeneyes, mergansers, scoters, Long-tailed, and the beautiful Harlequins. (The Black Scoter makes a plaintive sound that sounds just like my cat when she's hungry. One can't help but anthropomorphize and hear the longing in their voices.)

These birds breed further north. Courtship and pairing up now, while snow flurries still fill the air and they're far from nesting, will save time when they reach their breeding grounds. There, with a partner already established and courting out of the way, they can then get right to work mating and laying eggs.

Eider drakes show off,
wooing the russet hens.
High school was like this.

March 3: Sun and snow

The sky brightens at Owls Head Lighthouse, as we look across the water toward the Camden Hills, where snowfall veils the summits of Bald and Ragged Mountains, and clouds hang heavy over Megunticook and Mount Battie. With spotting scopes we find offshore one loon beginning to get its spotted breeding plumage back, some guillemots, and a lone Razorbill.

Lone loon afloat on cold seas,
lowering clouds.
Our light won't last.

March 2: Ennui

One of my favorite lines from Edward Gorey's delightfully morbid alphabet book, The Gashleycrumb Tinies: "N is for Neville who died of ennui." The illustration shows the top half of a child's round face peering out above the window frame. I thought of that image today as I sat at my desk looking out the window, chin in my hands, watching snow flakes drift about and water drip off the roof. I'm supposed to be writing, but feel so uninspired. That time of year.

Snow falling listlessly,
eaves dripping.
Where is my focus?

March 1: Details

Watching a female cardinal at my feeder, admiring her big, seed-chomping, bright orange bill and how it contrasts so prettily against her black face. So near, I notice details I never picked up on before. For example, her crest is tipped in red, as if rouged with lipstick. It almost glows against her smooth brown nape. Each time she dips her head for another seed, that red crest flickers like a little flame.

Familiar detail
of a loved one's face
rediscovered.

February 28: Red

Cardinal flying in the fog
on a bleak afternoon.
There is yet color in this world.

February 27: Hunger Moon

The February full moon of two days ago was referred to by some native tribes as the Snow Moon or the Hunger Moon. Hunger Moon especially makes sense, because this is about the point of winter when it gets harder for creatures living off the land to find food and stave off the seemingly ceaseless cold and snow.

In the snow under my feeders I noticed today tracks of mice, squirrels, and crows gleaning the seeds that the messy Blue Jays spilled. Taking what they can get. Many of us feel a certain hunger for something intangible this time of year, that restlessness for spring to begin to regain control of the landscape again, a renewal of faith in the cycle of seasons. As the effects of global climate change manifest themselves more dramatically, we're going to need that faith more than ever in days to come.

Wind howling,
tracks in the snow.
Dark hunger of need.