Out earlier than usual, it takes me much too long to understand why the cloudy sky is darker than the snow. Black coffee, enlighten me!
Year: 2010
Clear at sunrise, and just two degrees below freezing. A squirrel in the treetops touches its snout to the light’s leading edge.
Quiet at mid-morning except for the yank, yank of a nuthatch and the creaking of trees in what feels like it could become a clearing wind.
I can’t bring myself to sweep the new snow off the porch—such lovely stuff! But less than a minute later, I lapse into wool-gathering.
Finishing my coffee, I walk to the edge of the porch and stop short: the western horizon is a dark battleship gray, an anti-sunrise.
While chickadees call, a raven croaks, and snow glitters in the air, the sun steals above the horizon like a Hun, one blade at a time.
The wind has erased all but three footprints of a deer trail across the yard. In winter, you don’t connect the dots—you supply the dots.
A strong wind, and the branches let go of the snow they acquired overnight, big pieces sailing out and dissolving like boats made of salt.
White above, white below, and the dried weedstalks in the yard a scale model of the woods. A wren circulates with a brief news bulletin.
The wind was busy while I slept. Is this the same snow I swept off the porch yesterday? A nuthatch probes the cherry with its clinical bill.
The close sweep of a woodpecker’s wings sets off a squirrel, who scolds for ten minutes until a male cardinal appears, red as a stop sign.
My breath is so thick I can hardly see. Through the hood of my coat I can just make out a pileated woodpecker drumming a half-mile away.
Ten degrees Fahrenheit with a wind. An oak leaf skitters across the snow on its pointed tips, bumping through a forest of dead weeds.
The snow’s blowing from the east; I’m quickly covered. With my new white fur I will go crouch over a rabbit’s burrow, Nanook of the South.