Dawn. A Carolina wren drops like a ninja from its roost in the old hornets’ nest. The sky between the ridgetop trees turns to blood.
2018
12/30/2018
A little less gray today. A bright patch appears above the ridge and sinks toward the horizon, as if the sun had decided to go back to bed.
12/29/2018
Gray. A rattle of sleet not in the forecast seems somehow illicit—as if the power of authorities to control borders extends to the heavens.
12/28/2018
Foggy and damp. Small flies—or large midges—drift back and forth. A few branches high in the big tulip tree appear to be freshly debarked.
12/27/2018
Hoarfrosted grass glitters in the sun. A nuthatch calling up in the woods sounds more certain than I’ve ever felt about anything in my life.
12/26/2018
A corvid morning: crow, raven, and jay under a heavy gray sky. The half-cooing, half-scolding sound of gray squirrels in courtship.
12/25/2018
A dark dawn. The sound of water gurgling off to the right and trickling to the left, and in front of me the silence where it flows underground.
12/24/2018
A few snowflakes wander to and fro in the wind. From the flooded patch of ground next to the springhouse, the scattered chirps of birds.
12/23/2018
Another cold, dark morning. At the woods’ edge, a sharp-shinned hawk stands still with its freshly killed prey, as if catching its breath.
12/22/2018
Windy and overcast. Bare branches sway and clatter. The scattered chirps of small birds gusting toward the feeders at the other house.
12/21/2018
The fog slowly thins, revealing gray-green patches of rejuvenated lichen on tree trunks and limbs. The year pivots on its hinge.
12/20/2018
Out before dawn, I watch Venus rising through the trees, bright as a searchlight. The distant gargle of jake brakes from the interstate.
12/19/2018
A gray squirrel runs along the gray road bearing a freshly dug-up walnut. High in the blue, a jet’s contrail is short enough to be a tail.
12/18/2018
Clear and cold. Blazing through a forest’s worth of treetops, the rising sun looks feathery, a bit disheveled.