Wednesday November 29, 2017

Dave Bonta November 29, 2017

The hiss of the wind. Oak leaves scud above the treetops in one direction while juncos and sparrows move through the weeds in the other.

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As if in answer to the stream's soprano babble, the bugling of migrant geese, their V breaking and rewriting itself as they pass overhead. …

Clear sky. A bluebird warbling up by the barn. High overhead, a pair of ravens fly close together, uttering their most musical croaks. …

Cold and still, with a bright smudge of sun. A white-throated sparrow joins a junco in the dried stiltgrass, burrowing into it like a vole. …

The snowpack glitters, and the air too: flakes almost as small as dust-motes float back and forth in the sun. The rumbling of a bulldozer. …

Most of the mountain is still sealed under five inches of icy snowpack, but the wind goes down the plowed road, turning over all the leaves. …

The snow that began falling at 6:00 has softened to slush; the skunk prints that crossed the garden are gone. Fog fills the woods. …

A downy woodpecker gleans breakfast from the dead cherry, chirping between taps. A mackerel sky. The smell of thawed earth. …

Three stalks of garlic in the yard have kept their heads throughout this long winter, seasoning the snows. The distant fluting of geese. …

The high winds have stopped, but who knows how much snow has fallen? An apple core tossed into the yard for the deer disappears with a thud. …

A downpour. Just above the ridge, a sudden flash followed by a teeth-rattling rumble, the outline of an inverted tree fading on my retina. …

Fire engines wailing through the gap, air horns, the frantic melisma of ambulances. The wind blows snow against my cheek—pinpricks of cold. …

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