Friday December 05, 2008

Juncos gather on the gravel driveway, replenishing their gizzards with grit. Up and down the big maple, it’s squirrel kabuki, love and war.

On this date

The first stripe of sunlight to make it through the woods follows the 200-year-old colliers' trail. In thin snow, the cuneiform of sparrows. …

The wind has died; it's zero. Through my balaclava and hood I can hear the excited chirps of juncos on the plowed road foraging for grit. …

Low, gray clouds, and the ground half-brown after a day and night of melting. Over the rumble of my furnace I hear a screech owl trilling. …

Fog like a soundproof room. As always, the dead cherry's five splayed stumps are giving the middle finger to the road—to whatever comes. …

As the predicted snow begins, my parents' bird feeders grow loud with chittering. An eddy of wind carries the distant snarl of a chainsaw. …

One squirrel doggedly trails another through the falling snow. A third joins in and it becomes a high-speed chase, full of yelps and whines. …

A slow snow. I love that brief period before the walk is completely buried: the random mottling, the impression of a great, anonymous crowd. …

Fresh, deep snow on all the outstretched branches at the woods' edge—those trees that have always hungered for an extra helping of light. …

Juncos fill the lilac, nearest cover to an unfrozen section of stream. Five or six at a time they flutter down to drink from the dark water. …

How is it the stars, glittering as brightly as I've ever seen them, can begin to fade before the first perceptible lightening of the sky? …

A gray squirrel sits motionless for several minutes on the topmost crook of a fallen limb. Then like a diver it plunges into the snow. …

Very cold, clear and still. My last dream before waking was of hummingbirds, and the trees at sunset shimmering with caterpillar tents. …

The Morning Porch