Blowing snow plasters my boots, propped up on the railing. The creek is living in the past as usual, roaring with last night’s heavy rains.
January 2013
January 30, 2013
Dull yellow stripes in the fog: the rising sun slipping between ridge-top trees; thin tulip poplar branches chewed bare by a porcupine.
January 29, 2013
Out of the dense fog, the too-fast-to-count taps of a woodpecker drumming for the music of it. He pauses to let a train whistle blow.
January 28, 2013
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.
January 27, 2013
Blue shadows on the snow, and the sun so bright, sparkles gleam like lighthouse beacons even from within some of the thinner shadows.
January 26, 2013
This morning’s stillness is made of fresh snow, a distant jet, the quiet squeaks of a downy woodpecker and a dove’s whistling wings.
January 25, 2013
Crows begin scolding a red-tailed hawk on the far side of the field, and a squirrel digging in the yard hurtles into the bridal wreath bush.
January 24, 2013
New snow on every twig: a strange fur, this fine, dry stuff that forms so far below freezing. A vole rustles in the leaves beside the porch.
January 23, 2013
Clear and very cold. A single squirrel track crosses the yard, the footprints spaced far apart. The windward side of my face turns numb.
January 22, 2013
Bitter cold with a wind. The hillside seems unusually still, and after a while I realize it’s because there aren’t any squirrels out.
January 21, 2013
A slow snow. I love that brief period before the walk is completely buried: the random mottling, the impression of a great, anonymous crowd.
January 20, 2013
The sound of the wind up on the ridge mingles with the sound of trains in the valley until it’s almost impossible to tell them apart.
January 19, 2013
After a cold night, the temperature climbs to 40 by mid-morning and the snow loses its hard sparkle, flattens into a shining white pelt.
January 18, 2013
It’s very cold; the tall locust at the woods’ edge creaks with ice. A woodpecker taps on the topmost limb, silhouetted against pink clouds.