Snowstorm. The porch, too, has been erased, except where some small bird’s meandering footprints have exposed the blood-colored floor.
January 2017
Monday January 30, 2017
Every cloud brings a scatter of snow. I gaze at the sun’s bright smudge, remembering a 38,000-year-old depiction of a cow stippled in stone.
Sunday January 29, 2017
Male cardinals bathe side-by-side in the stream, then resume chasing. A jay perches in a dogwood bush shaking the water from his wings.
Saturday January 28, 2017
A few, wandering flakes slowly build into a snow squall. From my parents’ back porch, the “towhee” call of a towhee that hasn’t gone south.
Friday January 27, 2017
A skim of snow. A jay monitored by three fierce chickadees gives that red-tailed hawk scream—the one that signifies an eagle in the movies.
Thursday January 26, 2017
The last trace of snow has gone again. The sky is blank. What kind of January is this? Trees rock back and forth like traumatized refugees.
Wednesday January 25, 2017
A clearing wind accompanied by Carolina wren song. At the woods’ edge, moss is already emerging from yesterday’s snow, greener than ever.
Tuesday January 24, 2017
The black-and-white simplicity of a fairy-tale snow that clings to every dark twig: a fragile magic that never lasts beyond eleven o’clock.
Monday January 23, 2017
A small hawk flies through the forest in steady rain, perches in the crown of an oak for several minutes, and flies on. The wind picks up.
Sunday January 22, 2017
The clouds that settled in yesterday haven’t lifted, their slow drift barely perceptible through the shifting clarity of the trees.