A Deep River Year
March 12, 2014

 Walking through the center of town early this morning, I barely noticed them at first. There were blackbirds high up in the trees, flapping their wings and moving from branch to branch in the gathering daylight. Ten minutes later and a few blocks away, they were still up above me. I once knew a man who believed that a flock of crows followed him around, even as he moved from place to place, city to city. There is either a certain aura of paranoia about the suspicion that we are being followed--or an overdeveloped sense of our importance in the cosmic order that makes us think that even the birds are interested in what we are doing.

 When I got home, I was settled in to reading the morning paper and having my coffee when my wife, Phyllis, called me to the back door. She smiled as we stepped outside, and pointed to the tall maple in the side yard, where a large cloud of male red-wing blackbirds had taken roost, their spring song filling the morning. They were back! The red-wings’ arrival is one of the surest signs of the changing season, their unmistakable trill and distinctive “conk-a-reeeee” proclaiming, “It’s Spring!” Soon the females will arrive, too, and the marshes will be busy with nesting.

 The hills and yards are still a mess of gritty snow, but for now, I have my oracle. Today or tomorrow I will take a walk through the mushy snow that fills the woods, and I will hunt for the first striped points of skunk cabbage rising from the mud. I may find, along the way, a few snowdrops taking the sun in a sheltered place, or see an early bee hungry for a crocus. I even will be glad if a few blackbirds are interested enough to follow me.

Signs

 You have to know
 What to look for.
 Spring is not first announced
 By waves of daffodils
 Or the eruption of blossoms
 On the wild forsythia.
 Go among the sodden leaves,
 And look for a stretch of mud
 Where a skunk cabbage peeks out,
 Oblivious of cold,
 Or watch for a haze of red
 On the face of a distant hill,
 Or notice a sealed willow bud
 Split into a silver smile,
 Or listen for a song in the morning
 As a dark visitor flashes its wings
 In flight,
 A crimson badge of joy.

 --Timothy Haut, March 12, 2014