Tuesday, May 10, 2022

The Music of What Happens

Around the corner, three song sparrows are trilling their hearts out from a rooftop.  Their pleasure in the day and the season is echoed by a construction worker a few doors away belting out Doug Seeger's “Going Down to the River” as he installs drywall in the old Victorian house on the corner.  The door of the place is wide open, and his rendering of the gospel classic is somewhat off key, but it's a right soulful crafting and fine stuff indeed.

This morning, the crows left me a gift in the birdbath, a dead field mouse with its entrails spilled out and floating forlornly around in limp spaghetti-ish circles.  Not the way one would like to start the day, and I returned to the deck and held my nose firmly over the aromatic mug of Italian dark roast waiting for me there. Later I donned rubber gloves, scrubbed out the birdbath and refilled it with clean water. The crows will return with new booty tomorrow, and we will commence clean up operations all over again.

Tulips are starting to bloom, and in every shade of the rainbow, but it is the reds that dazzle truly - the blooms are almost incandescent in the early sunlight and so bright they hurt one's eyes. Frilly daffodils and scarlet fringed narcissus nod here and there, and violets sprinkle the garden in deep purple and creamy white. A neighbor's bleeding heart bush is covered with tiny green buds swaying to and fro on artfully arching stems. The magnolia trees in the village are flowering and rain fragrant petals like snow, their perfume lingering everywhere. Wonder of wonders, the first few bumble girls of the season have arrived, just in time to partake of the crabapple blossoms that will be out in a day or three. When Lady Spring finally shows up here, she hits the ground running.

What a splendid trip this season is, and how much there is to feast one's eyes on: blue skies, trees leafing out, wildflowers popping up everywhere, bird feeders in the garden full of cardinals, nuthatches, chickadees, grosbeaks, song sparrows and goldfinches. If I were to stop and take photos of every splendid thing I see on morning walks (and everything is splendid at this time of the year), I might not get home again for weeks.

3 comments:

Dee said...

Well written! Spring is just so divine.

Barbara Rogers said...

It's so good to enjoy the beautiful newness that spring offers...in such wonderful shapes and colors, and songs too!

christinalfrutiger said...

I love that..when spring comes, she hits the ground running! :)