A Book of the Seasons: April 6

April 6

Flowers advance as

steadily as a clock. Nature

loses no moment.

Hum of honey-bees

attracted by the flower

of the skunk cabbage

April 6, 1853

A still warmer day

than yesterday — a warm, moist

rain-smelling west wind

white maples resound 

with the hum of honey-bees 

like a summer dream.

they know where

to look for the white maple

and when.

April 6, 1854

On the hillsides I 

smell the dried leaves and hear flies

 buzzing over them. 

April 6, 1855

Vegetation comes

not by a steady progress

but by fits and starts.

April 6, 1860

See a plate of the Colias Philodice, or common sulphur-yellow butterfly, male and female of different tinge. April 6, 1857

 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 © 2009-2016