Spring Comes to the Merrimack

The first sign of spring arrived today. Every year here, like the swallows to Capistrano, there's one thing that always announces spring's arrival. For the ten tears I’ve lived by this river, its appearance is the one true indication that winter’s hold has been broken. Not ice-out. In fact there have been two or three winters in that span when the river didn’t even ice up at all. And mild winters are still winters.

It’s the trill of the red-winged blackbirds. It’s an unmistakable sound. Their song consists of two verses. The first is a clicking noise like the sound a chipmunk makes (“tch”), a chiding timbre scolding the cold weather for its recent cruelty. The second is a thick trill, an almost throaty sound, a luxuriant resonance reveling in the rising warmth (no spelling can describe it.)

Today I saw several red-wings in the tall brown grass along the river. They’re early this year. Usually they arrive sometime late in the second week of March, maybe the third if it’s been a long cold winter. Here, January was bitter but February turned warmer quickly, and the last week or so has been downright springlike. The groundhog was mistaken. But the red-wings never lead you in the wrong direction.

I wish I was keeping a weblog these past years, or at least an old-fashioned journal. Then I would know the dates of every year the red-wings arrived. I could graph it on Excel. Or better yet, I should have written an ode each year to their majesty. Well, last year I wrote a little ditty about them, so I know the date in 2003.


The First Wave 3.14.03

Reconnaissance arriving from the sun,
the red-winged blackbirds carry on their wings
insignia—crimson epaulets—homespun.
Their trill along the river heralds spring’s
return. The morning bursts with southern sound
as they prepare these northern borderlands
for occupation. Light will seed the ground
for growth and heat unshackle deadlocked sands.
Next week the equinox will land unseen;
its armaments will burn the country green.