“The year is but a succession of days,
and I see that I could assign some office to each day
which, summed up, would be the history of the year.”
Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852
On this first spring day
hear the fine-drawn phe-be note
of the chickadee.
March 1, 1856
Two hawks scream like wind
through a crevice in the sky,
that cracked blue saucer.
March 2, 1855
Fully blossomed cone,
winged black seeds half fill my hand
like tiny fishes.
March 3, 1855
A hawk rises and
sails away over the Wood
as in the summer.
And for the first time
I see the water looking
blue on the meadows.
March 5, 1854
Slender black birches
with gracefully catkined twigs
drooping on all sides.
March 6, 1859
The first pleasant days
of spring come out like a squirrel
and go in again.
See a small flock of
grackles on the willow-row
above railroad bridge.
March 8, 1860
The face of nature
lit up by reflections in
still, open water.
March 9, 1854
Misty and mizzling
weather almost April-like –
expect to hear geese.
Landscape nearly bare
distant mountains white with snow,
song sparrow’s first song.
March 11, 1854
First open water.
Two ducks on river before
I have launched my boat.
March 12, 1855
I hear the rapid
tapping of the woodpecker
over the water.
March 13, 1855
The wind begins to
play in dark ripples over
the virgin water.
March 14, 1860
A flock of red-wings,
how handsome as they go by,
bright scarlet shoulders
March 16, 1860
Whistling overhead
swift propellers of the air
flying with great force.
March 17, 1860
The flower in spring
expects a winged visitor
knocking at its door.
March 18, 1860
Sandy-bottomed brook
flowing cold from ice and snow:
fins poised over sand!
March 19, 1854
The life and joy of
this new ribbon of water
sparkling in the sun.
March 20, 1853
Thirty ducks asleep
with heads on backs motionless,
ice forms about them.
Maple twigs gnawed off
in the winter by rabbits,
the sap now flowing.
March 22, 1856
Sitting on this rock
we hear the first wood frog’s croak
and begin to dream.
March 23, 1859
Freshly cut pine wood
world of light and purity
its life oozing out.
March 24, 1853
Willows near Mill Brook
surprise me at a distance--
green, yellowish, red!
Withered tawny grass
now brightly lit by the sun,
fore-glow of the year.
March 26,1860
The hazel is out
greeting the spring at this
cold leafless season.
March 27, 1853
Smoky maple swamps
have now got a reddish tinge
from expanding buds.
March 28, 1852
A gull of pure white
outline simple and wave-like
two curves in the air.
March 29, 1854
Crossing the threshold
between winter and summer,
shoes instead of boots.
March 30, 1860
Distant mountain top
as blue to the memory
as now to the eyes.
March 31, 1853
"A book, each page written in its own season,
out-of-doors, in its own locality."
~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2020
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