Homeboy at Home During Coronavirus

October 14, 2020: Coyote Hollow, Thetford Center, VT

6:37 a.m. 45 degrees, wind NNW 3 mph, the ideal morning for a sharp-shinned hawk to leave for Cape May. Sky: part hoary mackerel, part clear; Venus and the old moon, horns up, in the east. Intermittent streams: a resurrection, visually and audibly, more babble than lyric. Permanent streams: speaking in tongues, flowing in ripples, a current to be proud of. Wetlands: yesterday's rain, today's fog; straw tones of marsh beneath layered mist: mid-band chowder-thick and infused with peach; elsewhere, thin and transparent. Pond: a screen of mist rises and drifts east, above a still surface (except for an aberrant tadpole up for a swim). Fresh leaves on the road: mostly big-toothed and quaking aspen, lemon yellow; a few maples, red and sugar; red oak, rust-colored and tough as leather. Every branch hung with raindrops, strings of jeweled reflections, each invert the landscape. Upside down, the dogs and I inhabit every drop.

Getting up before dawn has advantages. A pair of barred owls call back and forth across the valley, one close by, the other beyond the pond. Hoots and caterwauls unmask the world, push back the veil of darkness. Yesterday, Casey and Becky voted absentee in Colorado. On the ballot: proposition 114 (STATUTORY). Whether or not Colorado implements a plan to reintroduce wolves west of the continental divide. So far, wolves 2, elk 0. Go wolves. Why does the Northeast wait? Too many deer. Too many beavers. Too many wild turkeys. Not enough moose. Too many cases of Lyme disease. Wolves would help, and besides, their voices would hijack the night. Even the owls would approve. Rewild my neighborhood . . . please. 

A world in celebration. Birds hemorrhage sound, make up for yesterday's washout, an air of jubilation: a mile-long chorus of robins, nuthatches, chickadees, titmice, woodpeckers, jays, crows, ravens, juncos, sparrows, and kinglets. Chattering, peeping, chipping, deeing, cawing, screaming, screeching, zeeing, kvetching, croaking, rattling, tapping, laughing, from the deepest baritone (ravens) to the highest soprano (kinglets). Every movement of every bird jostles raindrops, a bird-induced drizzle. Red squirrels sound like Abbott and Costello-era windup alarm clocks, the ones with bells on the side . . . that annoying get-out-of-bed-and-get-dressed rattle. A maple stub along the road eviscerated by a pileated, a phalanx of chips skirt the trunk.

Below the barn, sunlight brushes the crowns of aspen, a descent of buttery light. A beautiful day in the neighborhood.