Coast of May: 1st half chapter

Try not to be too angry at the yellow colt’s foot or that other awful invasive, garlic mustard, coming onto the Island with those big truckloads of dirt coming to her neighbor’s where all that extensive planting is going on.

Perseverating, the doctors had called it, another sign of her injury.

The star magnolia buds here are already beginning to open.”

ANNA

Anna is used to talking with herself inside her head as she works— Anna Haines is a half-way hermit.

In the shadows crouched a snowshoe hare on outsized feet of leftover winter-white, its body already in its spring tweed-brown coat.

Bianca apparently had a fetish about all things white: her name, Bianca, her estate, Terra Alba or Alban Shores, whatever.

But, Alex knew from private experiments that these ones would make most bitter fiddleheads.

“I’m ready for spring,” groused May.
“Any day now,” Anna countered, “we’ll have billows of shadblow.

Not even Gran’s slow dial-up will get Dad online.

He flipped the page in his sketchbook and began to draw the first curls of cinnamon ferns as Shawn slogged back out over the flats for another round of clamming.

The winter’s accumulation of frost heaves and potholes had made the long ride on the small roads back to the Island a nightmare for the groaning girl in the backseat.

A mess of steamer clams sat on the doorstep.

And May cannot come to grips with her father’s disappearance.

Or song sparrows; or white-throated sparrows with a strangely incomplete song.

“The first laughing gulls.

The ground under the birch trees was carpeted with bunchberry plants, raising parasols of small leaves to the sky.

The white clapboard house at the head of Otter Cove was Junior’s, and his father’s before that, and his father’s before that, and so on back to the first Eaton to come to this Island in 1782.

Anna hated the way so many people dismissed a momentary memory challenge as a Senior Moment.

The first myrtle warbler, rich and cheery?

Ugh. That means the pink lady slipper orchids now the size of her little fingertip need a slug repellent.

Vestibular system had been a new term for both of them.

Those will turn into hay-scented ferns,” Anna remarked casually.

Alone with hermit thrush
and scent of arbutus
celebrate May Day

Anna pushed out her back door into the sunshine and found on the doorstep a vibrant blue Star-of-Holland Chionodoxa nosegay from Junior, her neighbor.

Dowdy sticks all winter, the red maples now gloried in a red-gold dazzle of flowering on the tips of every twig.

Every so often the shimmering song of a hermit thrush could be heard floating above the sounds of the sea edge.

“Hello, Hay-scented.

Whenever I hear the first spring warbler, whenever I see a brown elfin, it’s as if I’m in some new world.

For several evenings now the duck-clucking wood frogs and the soprano spring peepers had called the salamanders out to breed.

At close range, Anna could see that the silver pencils rolling spent in the surf were sand lances.

For several evenings now the duck-clucking wood frogs and the soprano spring peepers had called the salamanders out to breed.

Radish thinnings, long feathery fronds of the mizuna, broad circles of ni lon, a Chinese cabbage-like thing, bored by holes where the fleabeetles and slugs had made the first forays, but if she cuts them fine enough, May will never notice the holes.

Even on the Island we already have those tiny sweet white violets.”

His trophy wife had seen the property from their yacht and she desired it.

Skunk cabbage spathes, like so many monks cowled in dark purple, lined the road banks.

For several evenings now the duck-clucking wood frogs and the soprano spring peepers had called the salamanders out to breed.

The white squares of composition board, acoustic tiles, seemed perfectly in order.

“The Jenny Bee, Now that’s a sure sign of spring,” Shawn said.

You’re ready for your can of cat food you say?”

The sand and gravel beach was laced with footprints—the child’s, theirs—echoing the curving rhythms of drifts of washed up rockweed.

But her old bones did so appreciate the cradling contours of the wooden Boston rocker, the very rocker where she had once nursed her own babe.

He was perched on a large glacial boulder watching the eagles’ nest on Barred Island.

Not far offshore a group of four eiders came muttering along, two drakes and two hens talking with one another, taking turns diving underwater to pull small blue mussels from the rocks and seaweeds just below the lowest tidemark.

The lovely smell of rhubarb coffee cake nearly done wafted into the living room where Anna sat with the newspaper.

Axolotls she called them after the Mexican salamanders which retained juvenile form even when they became adults.

Vestibular system had been a new term for both of them.

ArthurCat, who had been snuggling at the foot of the bed, walked up the mountain of May. Still not getting the attention the cat felt was deserved, it stretched out a dainty leg and pawed over the half glass of tomato juice on tray beside May. May watched without intervening as blood-red liquid pooled and spread over the tray, seeped onto the bed covers.

Of course the Army wouldn’t let him have a webcam.

Gran kept giving her little daily chores to do; take out the garbage to the compost pile.

There was a surprisingly lush carpet of starry starflower this year.

A chuckling sound became apparent as a small flock of sea ducks appeared around the curve of the island.

The coppery red of shadbush leaves were nearly as lovely as the blooms.

She surveyed her garden plots again closely, inventorying everything that had sprouted.

Or black flies?

Or song sparrows; or white-throated sparrows with a strangely incomplete song.

It would bring out a coring about the size of a drinking straw.

Shawn had grown into quite a different sort of young man, early maturing in some respects, but Anna feared he might be just the sort who might stay forever at the teenaged stage of mentality.

From his pack he pulled out a small sketchbook.

Anna also found that every year she had to relearn the sounds of bird song all over again.

It was almost a community thing, exchanging opinions at the post office when she and her neighbors lined up to slide those familiar red envelopes into the Out of Town mail slot.

True to name, the cinnamon ferns were covered with a pale fuzzy down which really did look like cinnamon toast.

Load the dish washer, wipe off the counters.

Those will turn into hay-scented ferns,” Anna remarked casually.

The first bloodroot blooms, the purest white imaginable, stood in gleaming ranks above the thatch.

Not far offshore a group of four eiders came muttering along, two drakes and two hens talking with one another, taking turns diving underwater to pull small blue mussels from the rocks and seaweeds just below the lowest tidemark.

The backlighting of the small leaves on the birches, bright against deep purple sky was most dramatic.

At first that tiny butterfly always looks like a scrap of brown leaf whirling in the breeze over the winter-bare blueberry bushes or the granite gravel.