Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Twelve Moons of the Year. March 02

Significant sentences from The Twelve Moons of the Year by Hal Borland, a chronology of the New England seasons. March 02.

"Watch the willows and you need no almanac to know when the season turns." p. 78.

"...the peeper chorus is the voice of eternal spring." p. 78.

"A dozen peepers make less than a human handful, but their voices can fill a whole evening." p. 78.

"March means maybe, but don't bet on it." p. 80.

"There are no rules for March." p. 80.

"March is spring, sort of, usually." p. 80.

"Late March is a time of waiting, and by now the fabric of human patience has worn a little thin." p. 80.

"We know that May will come with lilacs and apple blossoms, but [in March] we don't know what the day after tomorrow will be like." p. 81.

"A cardinal...whistles imperiously...."

"Four black ducks skim the naked tree tops, wings swiftly beating, necks outstretched, silent as shadows." p. 83.

"Every garden is grown three times over.... First time is when the seed catalogs arrive and fill January days with dreams and perfection, all achieved without one callus or one drop of sweat.... Late March...second garden appears, in the village hardware store.... There are spades, the hoes, the rakes, sprouted in neat and shining array." p. 83.

"...the smell of the spring furrow newly turned." p. 85.

"...this big brown butterfly...seems to have neither haste nor hunger, only that need to ride the air, absorb the sun, be fully alive again." p. 87.

"The precise date is unpredictable, but one warm afternoon the change is in the air, winter turning to spring, and it is more than sunlight, more than warmth." p. 90.

Tomorrow: April, Part One.

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