A Book of the Seasons: March 3.

March 3.

Fully blossomed cone — 

winged black seeds half fill my hand

like tiny fishes.

March 3, 1855

The first song sparrows

inconspicuous and shy 

amid the stubble.

  March 3, 1860

March 3, 2012

Not only is this cone, resting upright on the ground, fully blossomed, a very beautiful object, but the winged seeds which half fill my hand, small triangular black seeds with thin and delicate flesh colored wings, remind me of fishes. March 3, 1855

The first song sparrows are very inconspicuous and shy on the brown earth. You hear some weeds rustle, or think you see a mouse run amid the stubble, and then the sparrow flits low away.  March 3, 1860

I should have launched my boat ere this if it had been ready. March 3, 1860

*****

 A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,the Song Sparrow (Fringilla melodia)

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Pitch Pine.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Boat in. Boat out.

February 1, 1856 ("I see a pitch pine seed, blown thirty rods from J. Hosmer’s little grove.”)

February 22, 1855 (“Pitch pine cones must be taken from the tree at the right season, else they will not open or “blossom” in a chamber.”)

February 24, 1857 ("I am surprised to hear the strain of a song sparrow from the riverside.")

February 24, 1857 ("Get my boat out the cellar.")

February 26, 1857 ("Paint the bottom of my boat")

February 27, 1853 (“The expanding of the pine cones, that, too, is a season.”)

March 1, 1856 ("I see a pitch pine seed with its wing, far out on Walden.”)

March 2, 1860 ("Looking up a narrow ditch in a meadow, I see a modest brown bird flit along it furtively, — the first song sparrow.”)

March 10, 1852 (" See a sparrow, perhaps a song sparrow, flitting amid the young oaks where the ground is covered with snow.”)

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,
out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2019