I made this video in early March of last year. Today is an almost perfect repeat. It’s a day made for blankets, manuscript revisions, and query letters. It’s the kind of day that makes me grateful for my laptop, because my feet get cold when I have to sit at my desk.
Publication update:
I’m happy to report that one of my poems, “The Devil Is in the Details”, appears in the most recent issue of Willows Wept Review, released this week. Issue Thirteen is available in print and PDF download.
One of the first purchases we made, after moving into our house, was a nest box for the back yard. Much to my disappointment, summer after summer passed with no nests. Then I ran across an article (I can’t remember where) that said birds prefer nest boxes positioned so the entrance faces north. With nothing to lose, we moved our unused nest box. Immediate success.
A pair of chickadees!
I spent many happy hours watching them stuff the nest box with pear petals and moss. But something went wrong and the nest failed. Later, when we cleaned the box, two tiny unhatched eggs made me want to cry.
In subsequent springs, we’ve watched more chickadees build more nests in the box, and all have failed. Only once did we know why. Bumblebees.
Now I’m tempted to take down our nest box, as it seems a source of great disappointment for both the birds and myself. But I suppose the bees need a place to nest, too. Maybe I’ll leave it one more year…
Falling victim to our odd non-winter, one of my irises lost track of time and bloomed far too early. Its madness stokes my mania for spring. I’m restless and unfocused, tempted to open my windows despite the cold. Should I trust the iris? Perhaps it is a more reliable prophet than a sleepy groundhog…
My camera reveals a small, shy, distant world that I cannot enter on my own. The zoom and macro functions transform me into Alice, and I crawl eagerly through the tiny lens, emerging in a land of wonder.
I photographed this little visitor in the first week of February last year. A full year has passed since then, a remarkable sequence of months that have been some of the most productive of my life, and the saddest. I suppose the same might be said of any twelve month span, as I tend to measure time by milestones of success and loss. But what if there is another way? What if I should learn to measure time as the distance between meals, as the difference between hunger and a handful of seed?
Rae Spencer 