Sunday January 06, 2013

Dave Bonta January 6, 2013

The sky is mangy, with blue patches showing through, and the yard is leprose with tracks. A rabbit twitches under the deer-ravaged rosebush.

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In the shadows of the treetops, two chipmunks race over and under the three inches of fresh, wet snow. A chickadee sings his spring song. …

‪Unseasonably warm. The sun catches on glass disinterred by frost heaving. From the valley, the cheerful pops of a semi-automatic rifle.‬ …

Behind the sky's thin skin, the sun is lurid as a bruise. More snow on the way. Six doves take off at once—the piccolo noise of their wings. …

In the midst of a near white-out, a crow caws, and the chickadees keep twittering. I shake snow from a tissue to blow my nose. …

Cold and clear. In the woods to the east, a loud dialogue of knocks: two pileated woodpeckers seeking admittance to dormant cities of ants. …

The sun glints off periwinkle leaves in the yard where snow has just melted. All sounds come from a great distance: crow, woodpecker, train. …

I hear voices: snowmelt whispering, murmuring, sighing, gurgling a hundred ways at once. Up in the newly bare field, a turkey gobbles. …

The dog statue in the yard is still buried except for its vigilant tail. On either side, the excavations of deer. …

The precipitation changes minute by minute: snow, sleet, drizzle. From the neighbor's house, the peremptory snarls of a reciprocating saw. …

Just out of sight through the dripping woods, something dangerous must be passing: a succession of deer blast its odor from their nostrils. …

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