Tuesday July 22, 2008

Cool and misty—everything drips. A bumblebee clings to the underside of a bergamot bract; on the topside, an equally motionless ant.

On this date

The first flakes, fine as flour, from a dull gray sky: far edge of the predicted blizzard. A silent crow flies over. A woodpecker knocks. …

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