Wednesday, June 20, 2007

The Twelve Moons of the Year. May (02)

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

"To us who live beneath them, leaves mean shade, ease to tired eyes, the pleasure of soft contours where a few weeks ago there were only stark skeletons of branches". p. 137.

"Every tree is a complex factory." p. 137.

"Birds...cramming their crops with insect fare, doing a better job of protecting plants from insect pests than any pesticide ever invented." p. 138.

"The robin is sedate, the oriole is a serious fellow, the blue jay is a blustering egocentric.... The catbird is a quick-witted entertainer who seems to find life a vastly amusing enterprise." p. 141.

"For sheer poetry of flight the barn swallow unquestionably deserves the laurel...a kind of lyric flight that makes one understand the meaning of exquisite grace." p. 144.

"But chimney swifts fairly twinkle in flight, swooping, dodging, racing.... They often chitter as they fly, almost as though laughing at their astonishing performance." p. 144.

"You can predict the patterns of swallows, like a perfect ballet; but the swifts improvise from moment to moment as though too exuberant to be confined by patterns...exultant, practically jubilant at being alive and a-wing.... ...celebrate the miracle of flight." p. 144.

"Pollen...golden dust of life, so minute that it dances in the sunbeams...." p. 145.

"Pollen forms a yellow film on rain pools and makes them look like molten gold." p. 145.

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