clouds

A band of salmon-colored cloud above the horizon half an hour past sunrise. From the top branch of a walnut tree, a brown-headed cowbird sings his single, complex note.

The briefest opening in the clouds for sunrise. The first brown thrasher drops by to sing a few bars. Then the squeaky wheels of goldfinches, converging on my mother’s feeders.

Unseasonably cold, with the sun so bright and air so clear, the few clouds seem lost, like guests at the wrong party. Leathery old mountain laurel leaves look fresh and […]

Heavily overcast at mid-morning. I watch a squirrel surveying the yard from atop a stump, then loping over and retrieving a husked walnut from a tuft of grass.

Blue above the cloud bank blocking the sunrise. At the woods’ edge, white-breasted nuthatches are having a free and frank exchange of views.

A gray cloud ceiling brightens toward the horizon. A phoebe stridently announces himself to the echoey hillside and the daffodils trembling in the breeze.

Bright blear of a sun in a sky more white than blue. Its light reflecting off the window behind me means I am lit on all sides as I peer […]

Thin clouds gone faintly pink. Under the endless robin song, a winter wren sings burbling accompaniment to the creek.

The ground is white again, and the trees sway like drunks as small orange clouds scud past. I sample the freezing air through a sunburnt nose.

After a bright sunrise, the clouds move in, one settling among the trees. The creek sounds more sober now, and here and there, the grass is greening up.

An hour past sunrise, bright spots begin appearing in the clouds. A lull in the birdsong. I notice the old lilac’s haze of green buds.

Another flat-white sunrise, today with the death scream of a rabbit. Crows, woodpeckers. The Carolina wren with his list of demands.

The creek still sings yesterday morning’s rainy tune, but by 8:00 o’clock the uniform white sky has devolved into patches of dark and light.

Rain clouds have settled in among the trees with their bodies like smoke. Wood frogs and forest salamanders must be stirring in their death-like sleep.