6:08 a.m. (sunrise two minutes earlier than yesterday). 39 degrees, wind S 1 mph (barely enough to stir fog). Sky: up there somewhere; for the moment, ground fog, thickest over the Ompompanoosuc River, planes the valley's contours and shields treetops, rolls out magic, warping an April morning. Permanent streams: impinged by drought, a soft gurgle, a pliable babble overwhelmed by birdsong . . . cascading wrens and thrushes, laughing woodpeckers, jaunty chickadees, and the hint of creepers, singing from the trunk of nearby trees. Wetlands: far shoreline nearly hidden, overhead the emergence of blue sky and six noisy geese, five in a "V" and one alone, bellies freshened by sunshine, a yellowish radiance. Pond: mist drifts east, gaunt and unsustainable—a pair of hooded mergansers off the opposite shore. Male works fog to his advantage; raises hammerhead crest, a flash of white; lowers crest, disappears like a magician's trick. Red-shouldered hawk, east of the pond, lances the morning, two drawn-out screams—the envy of every blue jay.
Out of the fog: chickadee whistles seventeen minutes before sunrise; barred owl hoots a minute after, loud and hollow, hounds the new day. Turkeys gobble and grouse drums. Hermit thrush sweetens the morning, sings two notes simultaneously, an ethereal duet with itself, wringing out the last bit of music—a tapered melody. A wide range of tones, the Aretha Franklin of songbirds.
Robin, also a thrush, high in a white birch, framed by catkins, sings. Although not as sweet as the hermit thrush, a long, complex song, carols and whistles, pauses, and phrases. Keeps on keeping on, something to contemplate . . . more Leonard Cohen than Aretha Franklin. Later this month, scarlet tanagers, those gorgeous harsh-voiced, pack-a-day songbirds, will drop their Tom Waits' lyrics out of the oaks. Until then, the Hollow belongs to hermit thrushes and robins, the sacred and the secular.
Under one sugar maple, seven twigs on the ground, swollen buds, infant leaves, and delicate flowers. Nipped by a red squirrel that sits on the branch, lapping beads of sap. A rust-colored rodent with a sweet tooth.
I leave for Colorado early Thursday to meet Isabelle Linny, my itsy-bitsy granddaughter, and to see Casey and Becky for the first time in fourteen months, a feat I hope never to duplicate (or approach). And, at the end of the month, when I return home, I'll prepare to leave the Hollow, to say goodbye after twenty-four years. Linny and I eyed the valley since 1982, the marsh, the inherited sense of isolation, the reality of proximity. We bought the property in 1997. To downsize and to take advantage of a radical real estate market, I sold my homeground on the downslope of the pandemic.
My life knotted across The Hollow: boys grew up here; Linny died here, her ashes mingle in the garden and the marsh (and Alpine Gardens of Mount Washington, she adored the Arctic wildflowers, a disjunct Lilliputian world).
At night, we'd watch summer thunderstorms roll over the marsh, lights out from Jordan's bedroom. I'd wade knee-deep in the muck to record bitterns. I've been a steward of the landscape that sustains me, fires my memories, some bitter, some sweet. My life, a rollercoaster, and a privilege—the seasons a buttress against loss. Coyote Hollow rediscovered . . . solace in the Age of Pandemic. But time has come to untether, to fling against the inevitable.
Oh, you are leaving! what has become for me also a home that you bring so close in. Coyote Hollow - I hope the new owners are sensitive stewards of the land like you have been for so long. Safe travels. May you continue to be blessed with bird song and bobcats.
You will be so very missed, Ted Levin. I am grateful to have arrived back in this Valley 30 years after I departed to have the time to learn so much from you. From dor/aor to the beginning of recognizing bird songs and to read scientific observations written as poetry. You are a wonder, and tiny Isabelle Linny will grow up loving and learning from the man only she may call grandfather.