Walking naked through the cold house at dawn, I’m startled by a bright light among the trees on the western ridge: the moon, big as a banjo.
January 2010
1/30/2010
By dawn, the clear sky has given way to white, as if the full moon spilled over. If the clouds were a true cover, they’d trap more heat!
1/29/2010
Cold dawn—a tree pops like a rifle. Nothing between here and the stars but the sunlight’s thickening mud. My windward cheek turns numb.
1/28/2010
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.
1/27/2010
Windy and cold. Six-legged stars bloom on my jeans, standing out against the faded black where the ticks of autumn had been so camouflaged.
1/26/2010
The ground is white again, a half-inch-thick pelt that must’ve formed in the small hours. The water’s monologue continues at a lower key.
1/25/2010
12 hours of downpour and the stream’s a torrent, water clear from running off frozen ground. Small clouds rise like spirits from the snow.
1/24/2010
A flat white sky, against which the cackling silhouettes of pileated woodpeckers flap and dive. My nostrils prickle with the smell of rain.
1/23/2010
Cloudless and cold. Listening to the underground stream gurgle through a hole in the yard, I think about my Chinese teacher from long ago.
1/22/2010
An hour before dawn, whose footsteps are those on the hard crust of snow, first tiptoeing, then running about? Mice, I think. No: sleet.
1/21/2010
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?
1/20/2010
Cold and clear at sunrise. Two ravens following the ridge croak in unison, their wings almost touching. A squirrel descends the springhouse.
1/19/2010
Day Six of the thaw, and the sound of running water dominates the pre-dawn darkness—still faintly illuminated by the threadbare snow.
1/18/2010
The overcast sky looks the same, but the light turns from glow to dull in just 15 minutes. I watch a brown creeper but hear only nuthatches.