Thursday May 15, 2008

Cloudy and cool. A tanager’s plucked string; no glimpse of scarlet. Where are they off to, the hummingbirds that keep zooming past my porch?

On this date

Bitter cold. Clouds hide the sunrise, but the crows still herald it. The squirrels appear to be staying in their nests. …

Back from the south to cold air, to old snow sagged and wrinkled. Mingling with traffic noise, the voices of non-migratory geese. …

The fast scrabbling of claws on black locust bark: another squirrel's in heat. Dead grass blades along the stream are rococo with hoarfrost. …

The cloud ceiling—as meteorologists call it—grows thin, judging by the sun's intensifying glow. Agitated song sparrows chirp back and forth. …

A few, wandering flakes slowly build into a snow squall. From my parents' back porch, the "towhee" call of a towhee that hasn't gone south. …

At sunrise, one shaft of sun reaches all the way through the woods to illuminate the end of the springhouse. The western ridge glows orange. …

It's very cold. I'm glad for the sun, which however soon begins to pulse as thin, parallel clouds move in, as regular as waves on a beach. …

Where a crevasse leads to an underground stream, a small hole has opened in the snowy yard, a dark ear throbbing with its own pulse. …

The snow is reduced to patches now, and the stream runs loud. The book I'm reading says there's no such thing as a pure white horse. …

The silence of falling snow. When my furnace kicks on, the three deer digging under the wild apple tree startle and run down the slope. …

How much better than dealing with website woes, to sit out here and watch the snow swirl—a dance of a thousand veils backlit by the sun. …

Like sand in an hourglass this pellet snow. Three craters in the yard—grass, leaves—from something that's trying to turn back the clock. …

White ground, gray sky, and the temperature just below freezing. The wind curls around the house like a dog's tail. A flock of goldfinches. …

The Morning Porch