Because humans are scant right now, in the rural area where we live, the birds and waterfowl are showing new force. For the first time in years, the geese are coming up from the lake and then the bay and the creek, and settling into the grass with their fluff ball newborns. The trees around, many with leaves still coming in, are wild with birds, all flecks and splashes of color: the robin, the blue jay, the red winged blackbird, a warbler flickering gold.
Then we have the white swan and the blue heron, all coming nearer as it is quiet without the mowing of lawns and gatherings of neighbors. Overhead, usually at dusk, the turkey buzzards swoop closer and closer to us. I really can’t do it justice.
This groundhog keeps coming out to chew on the dandelion — who knew that the groundhog is a vegetarian?
Meanwhile, we bought a pink flower at a local nursery — it was called ‘the wave.’ In just a few days it has become five blooms.
Some lilac shoots arrived in a bag in the mail with a sign that said PLANT IMMEDIATELY.
“Now that lilacs are in bloom
She has a bowl of lilacs in her room
And twists one in her fingers while she talks.
“Ah, my friend, you do not know, you do not know
What life is, you who hold it in your hands”
as I quoted in my high school yearbook — because I knew that while all of life was before me, I could not, for various reasons at the time, be at ease in it. (T.S. Eliot)