Journey Into Spring: April 8, 2019

A bluebird comes out of the woods at Yellowwood as I launch. A good omen? Sometimes a bluebird is just a bluebird. The catching starts early but tapers off. I keep thinking fish are rising splashily behind me as I make my way down the shoreline (I'm traveling backwards in the tube) but it's only turtles plopping off their sunning perches. The day ends with swallows, bats, a fiery sunset, and a fragile crescent moon. All well worth the trip.

"Fragmentary Blue" by Robert Frost

(A bluebird comes, and then I find a poem to go with it.)

Why make so much of fragmentary blue

In here and there a bird, or butterfly,

Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye,

When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue?

Since earth is earth, perhaps, not heaven (as yet)—

Though some savants make earth include the sky;

And blue so far above us comes so high,

It only gives our wish for blue a whet.

February Surprise

The first day of February brought this right outside my study window. The first one I've seen in our yard, and a very welcome sight.