5:17 a.m. 42 degrees, wind NNE 1 mph. Sky: mottled but mostly blue, wispy clouds coalesce in the south. Tributaries quiet down; veeries picking up the slack, singing along both permanent streams. A windrow of yellow birch catkins gathers along the edge of the road. Ash buds open; leaves lacy. Against the sky, one small ash reminds me of a Japanese rice painting; every twig of every angled branch supports a bouquet of tiny leaves. As if to highlight a sense of the Far East, two chickadees and a Tennessee warbler measure the bouquets and then tweeze out inchworms, Geometrid moth larva, one after the other.
Across the road, a chestnut-side warbler in a small black cherry sings, head back, beak to the sky . . . eye-level and arm's length. Does it get better than this? Even my dogs notice.
Rose-breasted grosbeak makes music high in a maple; a heartfelt song that reminds me of my boys' childhood, when every grosbeak brought from them a burst of unbridled enthusiasm; a transient celebration of black and white and red, which lasted as long as the bird stayed in view . . . our world always richer for it. Thoughts of my boys entwine with grosbeak lyrics. This was once their valley, seat of their childhood. A synthesis of dry and wet they named Coyote Hollow, a homage to the wild canids that sang them to sleep the night we moved in, a quarter of a century ago. Here they grew up in a landscape engorged in detail, often roaming with abandon, untethered from time and, momentarily, from responsibility. Blessed by their mother, they gathered tadpoles and cocoons and little snakes with red bellies; incubated turtle eggs and snake eggs; discovered where the vultures nested and the otter played. Cared for a weasel and a kestrel. For Casey and Jordy, Coyote Hollow forever stains their memory, beauty tinged with sadness. This is where life's earliest lessons were learned, and their mother's bones are here to remind them.