5:10 a.m. 62 degrees, wind NW 2 mph. Sky: cloud clotted, thick, low, and without highlights; columns and tendrils of fog merge with the floor of the sky; visibility curtailed. A thick river of fog traces the course of the East Branch of the Ompompanoosuc. Truncated worldview: rain-rich green and saturated; leaves washed and shiny. Inside the woods, away from the open road, fairy tale darkness. From crown to ground, tree trunks rain-streaked; some wide, some narrow. Permanent streams infused and on the move; upper gurgles; lower murmurs. But neither approach late April standards and without more rain they’ll likely dry out . . . again.
Birds enthusiastic. Juncos trilling. Thrushes fluting. Black and white warbler whispering. Black-throated blue warblers buzzing. House wrens chattering. Ovenbirds screaming. Catbird, a mockingbird with imagination, inventive and not inclined to mimic, never repeats the same phrase in succession. Crows cawing. Doves cooing. Out of the gloom, barred owl hooting. Chestnut-sided warblers rambling. Yellowthroats whistling. Hairy woodpecker in the uppermost branch of a skeletal birch, muted. Phoebes, distinctly guttural, as though clearing their throats. Tanagers and bittern are hushed and hidden. Pewees dispirited whistling. Jays complaining; chicks beg. June on the threshold July, summer ripening.
Coyote Hollow, my topographic intimacy; a personal panorama endlessly revised and edited by eons of erosion and natural selection. A thousand dramas, big and small; a thousand solutions. Years pass like minutes. Decades like hours. A pileated flys into unmarred emptiness followed by his voice.
Lovely. Every day just as lovely as the day before. Regardless. I'm interested in your process. Do you take notes while you're outside and then write your entry when you go back in? How hard do you have to work for that striking and often personal reflection, that punch of your last line or two? Do you work for it, or does it just come to you?