Almanac

The blackbird knows February by the length of the day and sings twenty minutes earlier each week. I know this because I time it, standing at the kitchen window with my tea, waiting for the first note from the holly bush. March: the song is longer. Territorial. Other blackbirds answer from the garden wall, from the oak, from somewhere behind the shed. They argue in perfect intervals. It sounds like music. It is music. It is also war. April and the female is on the nest. The male doubles his volume. He sits at the highest point available — usually the aerial, which annoys the television but delights the cat, who watches from the window with the concentration of a scholar studying texts she cannot reach. May: fledglings. Small, brown, spotted, stupid. They sit on the lawn like they've been placed there by someone who didn't explain the rules. The cat's interest intensifies. I close the cat flap. June, July: quiet. The moult. Feathers dropping. The blackbird hides in the hedge and says nothing, like a politician between scandals. August: the berries begin. Rowan first, then elder, then hawthorn. The blackbird eats with focus. This is the refueling season, the putting on of weight against the months ahead. September: the song returns. Softer now. Autumnal. Less war, more elegy. The blackbird on the aerial at dusk, silhouetted, singing the day closed. October to January: I don't see him. I hear him sometimes — a low ticking from the undergrowth, an alarm call when the sparrowhawk passes. But no song. The contract is paused. February again. Twenty minutes earlier each week. I am at the window. The tea is ready. The holly bush is waiting. We begin.