April 4, 2009

Crocket is a Plott Hound. Her ears are floppy. Her eyebrows are prominent. Her eyes always look sad. Her snout is long. She has brindle markings.
Her coat is short and shiny. When she gets wet the water just runs right off of her. Her tail is long. It is thick at the base and narrows to a point.
When chewing a bone, she holds it with her front paws. Dark black whiskers dot her muzzle. her nose is wet to the touch and covered in tiny bumps.
She has wide jowls the size of which are evident when she sticks the bone in her mouth. Her teeth are tiny, but sharp. Whisker come out of her chin and lower lip. When chewing the bone, her eyes are closed tightly and her nostrils flare.
She licks the bone with her long, pink, rough tongue. The hair on her chest branches out in two directions toward opposite shoulders. Her nails are black and wide. Spreading out her feet, there are webs between her toes. The pads on her feet are black and feel like sandpaper.
The fur on her face grows in a line up the middle from the tip of her nose to the top of her head. At the top of her head, black stripes grow in arches over the shape of her skull.
When she barks it is low, loud, and insistent. Her tail curls up in the shape of a "c" and she points to the sight of the disturbance with her nose. Her ears stay limp and floppy at the side of her face.
Her stomach is also brindle. The fur is thicker on her chest and thins out near her private parts and inner thighs. Laying on her back, her front legs bend up toward her face while her back legs splay out. Her jowls move back toward her ears revealing her teeth.

She is thirteen and a half months old. Just 11 months ago, she was much smaller and her features were less defined.

April 2, 2009

All kinds of green things which lay dormant and hidden underground for months and months are poking through the dirt and mulch thanks to rain and sun and consistently warmer temperatures.
They are in the front yard garden. The side that faces north. The garden goes right up to the edge of the sidewalk which abuts the street. Still they grow.
The tulips are obvious. Curled at the bottom and fluted at the top. They are red on the bottom, but will turn entirely green in time.
They are smooth and bright. They are empty inside. The little red points at the top helped push through the soil.
The leaves are flat on this mystery soon-to-be flower. Flat and smooth. The leaves are splayed out and rounded at the top. Maybe they were all much tighter to each other when they were pushing through the earth and then splayed out only when they emerged.

This are brighter green and multi-colored. They may be hyacinth or iris'. Green with a white stripe down the middle. Green, white, green; the stripes are nearly identical in width.

The earth mounds around the bottom of the Tulip which insistently pushes at it as it continues to grow.
The larger green Tulip greens emerged first. The little red Tulip plants have just begun to turn green in places.

Signs of Spring.

Mourning Dove

On a sunny, clear March afternoon a Mourning Dove hops across a green lawn. Cars whiz by as the dove pecks at the ground, looks around, pecks at the ground, looks around. The grass is green which means the soil is fertile and makes a good home for bugs and worms. Bugs and worms are bird food. The Mourning Dove feasts. Its feathers are varying shades of brown. Toward the tail-end are dark brown polkadots. Its legs are long, thin and orange. Its beak is long and narrow.
As I inch closer, it senses me and flies away revealing an iridescent blue stripe of feathers on the underside of its tail.

March 22, 2009

The rain is coming.

The buds are budding. Curled tight. Multicolored. Red, orange, yellow, green. Multiple buds in one spot. Symmetry.
On another tree. Green only. Smaller. Smoother.

The sun comes through momentarily.

Water, light, and warmth is all they need to pop.

March 17, 2009

Snow remains on the north facing wall of the yard. Along the southeast facing fence the snow has melted to reveal green shrubs.

The Maple casts a long shadow.

The birds are not in their favorite tree.
The Rose of Sharon still sheds its seeds. The snow has melted to reveal three trunks. Maybe there is more than one Rose of Sharon. Maybe it is two or three clustered together.

In melting, the snow has revealed many vines along this side of the wall. Instead of growing horizontally as they do closer to the southeast corner of the yard, they grow vertically, for the most part.
The moss is still thriving, moist and green.
In the corner, diagonal from the Rose of Sharon, two trees have been revealed. There are bumpy beginning of buds on their branches.
One is tethered with a bungy cord. The other is wrapped around a trellis. How would they grow without aid or impediment?

the sun is high and bright. It works hard to melt the snow and warm the buds for Spring.
Wispy clouds brush along the sky. There will not be snow or rain today.

March 7, 2009

The day is cold and windy. Bits of snow and ice still remain on the ground in places. Outside CVS in Downtown Crossing, Boston, MA the pigeons huddle together. They are lined up against the wall under the awning. They tuck their heads under their wings and their feet under their bellies to stay warm. Though it is windy, their feathers do not ruffle. Occasionally one shifts so that a part of their body that was not touching the body of another bird now is. When one shifts they all shift. They stand near where the sun is hitting the pavement. Bird poo covers the ground along the entire wall under the awning. As the sun moves, they must move along the wall with it. There are a few trees in front of CVS, but no birds in them. It seems the pigeons would feel safer up high in a tree, but they are city pigeons and used to people and cars and other potential dangers all around them.

An old Chinese woman exits the store, reaches into her pocket, and scatters birdseed along the wall. The pigeons do not move. She probably does this for them every day and they have come to expect it, come to know that as they move along the wall with the sun there will be food.

They huddle and shift, huddle and shift keeping each other alive.

March 2, 2009

The night is chilly and boasts a clear sky. Stars twinkle. City lights not a factor. Taking in the whole picture instead of individual star by individual star, Orion's Belt appears. The moon is a tiny sliver shedding little light, allowing the stars appear even brighter. Looking up long enough it is obvious that the world is round. There are no edges, no clear horizon; only black speckled with shimmers insisting the world is a sphere things live inside.