As daylight gathers, the sky goes from white to gray. A train whistle trailed by its rumble of freight. The distant propellers of a plane.
December 2013
12/29/2013
Steady rain. The corners of the yard still glisten dully with the pellet ice that fell in the night.
12/28/2013
A squirrel tumbles out of the big maple and catches itself in the top of a locust sapling, tail wrapping around the branch like a fifth leg.
12/27/2013
The sun flickers as thin clouds drift past. In the otherwise still meadow, one bent head of brome grass is swaying.
12/26/2013
The snow seems on the verge of stopping for several hours. The trees turn white. My guests go out and return with snow in their hair.
12/25/2013
Sunrise turns the western ridge crimson. Chickadees and titmice flit through the branches, calling, while we stand snapping pictures.
12/24/2013
A few flakes come swirling out of the woods. A dried oak leaf lies on the porch floor like a sad umbrella or a mouse with too many legs.
12/23/2013
Parallel relics of the plow, the only snow yet to go glows in the dim light. A song sparrow by the spring house sings his spring song.
12/22/2013
The ongoing warmth and rain have reduced the snow to scattered patches. Above the roar of the creek, a flock of goldfinches whistling.
12/21/2013
Warm rain. Fog rises from the melting snowpack, lifting and sinking in obedience to imperceptible changes in the air.
12/20/2013
A gray, dank morning. The light tapping of meltwater on the porch roof. A single squirrel forages in the trees at the edge of the woods.
12/19/2013
Dimples stipple the snow below the porch where icicles dripped. Sparrow tracks circle a dame’s-rocket seed-head bent down by the last storm.
12/18/2013
Snow must be falling in the darkness—I feel the flakes on my hand. The porch shivers as the furnace under the house kicks on.
12/17/2013
The curious satisfaction of watching snow erase my own footprints. Up in the woods, the woodpeckers too are busy fixing what isn’t broken.