Cold—the porch floorboards pop under my feet. Real snow at last! The rising sun stretches two faint fingers across the driveway.
Thursday January 19, 2012
Each blanketing of snow so far this winter has happened while we slept. How superstitious to insist that it all must’ve fallen from the sky!
Wednesday January 18, 2012
Trees rock and sway, infiltrated by snowflakes flying this way and that. From deep in the lilac, the wandering warble of a tree sparrow.
Tuesday January 17, 2012
Cold rain drips in the pre-dawn darkness. The wail of a locomotive sounds frighteningly close and full of an obscure, mechanical longing.
Monday January 16, 2012
My new glasses have some sort of prismatic coating. I turn my head and see a rainbow-banded sun rising east-northeast among the pines.
Sunday January 15, 2012
I bring no hat brim or sunglasses to my front-porch tete-a-tete with the sun, grateful on such a cold morning for any display of warmth.
Saturday January 14, 2012
An hour before dawn, the half-moon is a sideways emoticon among a scatter of bright pixels. A screensaver takes over and the yard goes dark.
Friday January 13, 2012
Wind-driven snow; I draw my hood tight. On the wall behind me, the thermometer’s big red arrow inches left like a clock running backward.
Thursday January 12, 2012
Cool and damp. The low-hanging clouds catch on the treetops. Crows signal their locations with almost every wingbeat.
Wednesday January 11, 2012
Hard frost, as they say—but up close, it’s spikes and needles. As if in the absence of snow the ground grows its own fur against the cold.
Tuesday January 10, 2012
My brother’s gray truck parked out front makes the house seem diminished and sad, like a boat stranded miles from the sea.
Monday January 09, 2012
A call half-cackle, half-whinny: red-bellied woodpecker. I spot him in the sunlit crown of a locust, round red head beside a hole.
Sunday January 08, 2012
A wren sits grooming itself in the sun on the peak of the springhouse roof, fluffing out its breast feathers, probing under its wings.
Saturday January 07, 2012
If I hold my head perfectly still, I can watch the sun move through the winter woods, climbing from limb to limb toward the untrammeled sky.
Friday January 06, 2012
Clear sky, bright sun, and the temperature well above freezing. A crow’s shadow scuds over what’s left of the snow like a dark promise.
Thursday January 05, 2012
A steady hum of traffic from over the ridge spoils the pre-dawn quiet, just as the snow on the ground sullies the darkness.