Homeboy at Home During Coronavirus

August 4, 2020: Coyote Hollow, Thetford Center, VT

5:41 a.m. 61 degrees, wind 2 mph. Sky: drearily overcast; the air thick enough to slice and serve; rain on the scale between a mist and a sprinkle; the sound of dripping leaves pervades sunrise, heaven threatens to unload. Permanent streams: upper, shallow and silent, grudgingly flows; lower, underground like a mole; all that remains is a damp groove and water-smoothed rocks. Wetlands: tarnished and thirsty. Pond: drizzle-dimpled; tight and tiny ripples, overlapping and light-catching; hard to pull away . . . but the dogs try.

Soundscape: tanager on a mission, still singing in the driveway oaks; red-breasted nuthatch cuts into the morning with a series of yanks, a barb of a call compared to the piercing stiletto-call of the hawk, which sits somewhere above the marsh, water beads on his feathers, his eyes blink out the rain; a flock of jays; three chickadees; a forlorn crow crying in the pines, a bird that rarely advocates socially-distancing. I stop to admire the tedious persistence of a red-eyed vireo, also alone, in the hardwoods singing his heart out; other vireos (and most flycatchers and warblers) have better things to do. Perhaps, an urge to carbo-load and get out of town? Webworm tents expand into townhouses and condos; takeout cuckoo food.

Alone, at sunrise, day after day since the middle of March, I've walked my two dogs to the pond. I've paused in admiration of the revolving seasons, the puckered landscape, and all the creatures that people the valley. Concurrently, I've expanded my vocabulary to include the new COVID-19 words and phrases: social-distancing; self-isolation; home-quarantine; self-monitoring; drive-thru tests; contact-tracing; super-spreader; droplets; and fresh mashups: quarantini (the fusion of quarantine and martini), coronageddon, coronapocalypse, and my absolute favorite covidiot, of whom I've encountered more than a few. My own contribution to this list, which for me sadly endures . . .  socially-starved.