Thickening contrails stripe the sky. Two ravens fly side-by-side over the house, trading hoarse commentary. The blur of hoarfrost.
January 2011
1/30/2011
A titmouse lands in the dead cherry tree, reaches into the cracked bark, pulls out a sunflower seed and taps it open, pausing twice to sing.
1/29/2011
It’s snowing again. A blue jay keeps returning to the same high limb to eat snow, as if it can’t find that exact flavor anywhere else.
1/28/2011
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.
1/27/2011
A large white bird—albino crow? Lost seagull?—glimpsed through the snow, agglomerated flakes as big as small leaves, rocking and spinning.
1/26/2011
A distant quarry truck’s reverse beeper has gone bad, and trills just like a digital alarm clock. Dueling chickadees tumble through the air.
1/25/2011
Low clouds, and the highway—almost inaudible for weeks—sounds close. The air shimmers. I stick an arm out, and white motes dot my sleeve.
1/24/2011
The ugly squat burdock has a thin and graceful shadow. It inches over the snow without getting snagged by the sharp sparkles of sun.
1/23/2011
In the bitter night, a white-footed mouse bounded unerringly from the corner of the wall to a hole 20 feet away. The snow is my newspaper.
1/22/2011
Intense cold, and a stillness so deep the trains can barely be heard. A cardinal flickers like a pilot light under the bridal wreath bush.
1/21/2011
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.
1/20/2011
Juncos hop on the icy snow between the cattails where a rabbit disappeared fifteen minutes earlier, taking the darkness with it.
1/19/2011
After last night’s rain, the snow fits each dip and hummock more tightly, like a garment shrunk in the wash. The creaking of doves’ wings.
1/18/2011
Fine snow blurs the edges of the porch. The feral cat has walked in her own footsteps through the garden, a clear print in each old crater.