May 16 The Wise Witch, blossoms in her hair.  There is more green every day. The distant hills show green now. I am sitting on the porch, warm enough in shirtsleeves.The raven is circling the ridge and croaking. There is a pair of crows too, nesting nearby. The song sparrow is nesting here, maybe two…

 May 9 This is my mother with my first daughter, Tamar. She died when Tamar was seven, before Rain was born. I wrote this poem several years later as I began to see who my mother was, not as a mother but as a woman unto herself.  sunsets at little pike partly she was alone…

may 8 where did my spirits go those three days when the rain closed in and shrouded grey the vermont hills the green mountains bereft of certainty I was cold and though the wind blew soft it did not soothe the sun is shining now tree swallows newly arrived trapeze maniacally over the meadow one…

 May 3 The sun was shining yesterday and the trout lilies, who slept closed up through two days of rain and chill, opened and showed their faces once again. More and more are flowering among the trees on the ridge.  Here is a bellwort, my first good look at the flower. More tiny white violets…

 Apr. 29 Forest: Tree House, River, Dollhouse, Brook. The ridge stream where green life is emerging from the pale winter leaves. The tiny waterway tumbles headlong down and down the ridge, in perfect imitation of a great rushing river with waterfalls, pools and deltas.  A miniature delta forms as the stream merges with the pond….

 Apr. 28 I was awake and thinking about getting up when K called me to come and see this. (5:52 am.) In minutes it had paled to gold, then the song ended and it was daylight. It was K who called it an orchestra of light. ***** I took Rain into Mansonville today on an…

 Apr. 25 The red trillium I seldom saw in Ontario, was more familiar with the white. Here, I have seen no white ones yet, though there are more and more reds in bloom. I was writing to someone about science fiction and my autocorrect changed Sci fi to Sci if. Poetic. The wind is blowing…

 Apr. 22 the snow is a river blind as april as summerless     pouring down the meadow the world ends at the south ridge all distance gone it snows though blood trilliums have bloomed in the woods the sun casts tree shadows on the fallen snow  but still snow flows down the mountain blown on…

 Apr. 21 I put up the “Blind Dog” sign yesterday and already the name “Blind Dog Hill” is beginning to sound familiar in my mind. Fig is skinny as a rail now and his hair is falling out – mostly his long coat, his short, darker coat is so soft, but I feel his ribs…

 apr.17    The snow and my rain gauge, mocked! We had no precipitation for 15 days and I began to feel that I, myself, was beginning to need rain as much as the thirsty meadow. At last it began to rain on Thursday. I scrambled to find my rain gauge and planted it by the…