Dear April there’s a cardinal nesting beneath my bedroom window
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.vianegativa.us/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/img_9739.jpg?resize=525%2C394&ssl=1)
she’s sitting on three speckled eggs
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our first hot day. sitting on a bench in the woods where i swear the same two or three bluebottle flies keep landing on me no matter how many i kill. no wonder people used to believe in spontaneous generation
the Zang Di book has already proved its utility as a flyswatter. well done Zephyr Press
Stir-fried pork and asparagus is a starting point for poetry.
Zang Di (tr. Eleanor Goodman)
i like this guy. his mind moves in interesting ways
this too in the middle of a well-used trail is language
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.vianegativa.us/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/img_9734.jpg?resize=525%2C394&ssl=1)
hypothesis (clears throat): the invention of symbolic language by humans was essential to make up for the lost richness of meaning our more distant ancestors accessed through their noses
there’s a profusion of trailing arbutus blooms this year like nothing we’ve seen here in 52 years. not sure why. though i do have some hypotheses…
it’s maybe a bit unusual in the modern world to know exactly where you’ll someday be buried. i noticed today a porcupine has been littering the ground all around with spruce twigs (they’re messy eaters)
my future gravesite
old puffball
blowing smoke
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.vianegativa.us/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/img_9737.jpg?resize=525%2C380&ssl=1)
barred owl calling up in the woods, just one disapproving-sounding who! at a time
for years, my ex heard me talking about bard owls and wondered what made them so poetic
sitting just inside the edge of the woods is a completely different experience from sitting on my front porch less than 100 feet away. a more vulnerable experience, especially after dark. a humbler experience
(when did humility stop being a virtue asks the old crank)
the porch offers the remove of civilization. a roof blocks most of the sky—it’s no wonder suburbanites long ago ditched porches for back decks
OTHER POSTS IN THE SERIES
- April Diary: premature encapsulation
- April Diary 2: talking frogs and brush strokes
- April Diary 3: stag beetle, wolf spider and fly
- April Diary 4: immersion
- April Diary 5: Dutchman’s breeches, sorcery, glutes
- April Diary 6: freedom, haiku, and Roscoe Holcomb
- April Diary 7: wolfish
- April Diary 9: sapsuckers, beginner’s mind, and Phoebe Giannisi
- April Diary 8: talking mushrooms, Utnapishtim, dead poet society
- April Diary 10: on not following myself
- April Diary 11: you may already be obsolete
- April Diary 12: flowers in hell
- April Diary 14: cardinal, coyote, owl
- April Diary 13: wildflowery
- April Diary 15: all my best friends are books
- April Diary 16: deer trails
- April Diary 17: comfort creatures
- April Diary 18: cruelest month, new Rumi, carpe noctem
- April Diary 19: onion snow
- April Diary 20: balancing on one foot, waiting for Armageddon
- April Diary 21: Where are the snows of yesterday?
- April Diary 22: serious riddles
- April Diary 23: earthy day
- April Diary 24: dueling banjos, a roomier Rumi, and some moving art
- April Diary 25: migration time
- April Diary 26: where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees
- April Diary 27: half steam ahead!
- April Diary 28: failing upward, tumbleweed, new beasts
- April Diary 29: wildflowery
- April Diary 30: aging in place
- April Diary 31: in conclusion