Spring IS here!

Well before any hint of dawn this morning, the dogs were walking me along the road and I heard an owl call. It didn’t call my name, but instead asked: “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?” Later, in the pale, gray, pre-dawn, at the ecotone where the woods transitioned to fog-filled fields behind the house, a pair of ghost deer floated by as I was hanging the bird feeder. All-in-all, one of the better starts to a day than we’ve enjoyed in some time.

barred ow perched in an oak tree

Photo by J. Harrington

And still later, as we headed off to do some errands, we saw a flock of about a dozen or so pelicans circling near, but not over, the Sunrise river pools near Hwy 36 in Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area. As we were returning home, a couple of frogs were hopping across Hwy 19. Signs of Spring have become abundant.

Yesterday a tom turkey was gobbling for awhile. At lease I think it was a real turkey, since the hunting season doesn’t open until April 17, a week from today.

If you have any siblings, today is the day to wish them “Happy Siblings Day!!” If you don’t have  siblings, please accept our condolences.

Little Owl Who Lives in the Orchard

by Mary Oliver

His beak could open a bottle,
and his eyes - when he lifts their soft lids -
go on reading something
just beyond your shoulder -
Blake, maybe,
or the Book of Revelation.

Never mind that he eats only
the black-smocked crickets,
and the dragonflies if they happen
to be out late over the ponds, and of course
the occasional festal mouse.
Never mind that he is only a memo
from the offices of fear -

it’s not size but surge that tells us
when we’re in touch with something real,
and when I hear him in the orchard
fluttering
down the little aliminum
ladder of his scream -
when I see his wings open, like two black ferns, 

a flurry of palpitations
as cold as sleet
rackets across the marshlands
of my heart
like a wild spring day.

Somewhere in the universe,
in the gallery of important things,
the babyish owl, ruffled and rakish,
sits on its pedestal.
Dear, dark dapple of plush!
A message, reads the label,
from that mysterious conglomerate:
Oblivion and Co.
The hooked head stares
from its house of dark, feathery lace.
It could be a valentine. 

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