All the birds are calling and then they’re not. I’m remembering a big oak that stood at the woods’ edge when I was a kid—no trace of it now.
Year: 2018
New snow blown about by a bitter wind. A red-tailed hawk struggles to gain altitude, mocked by a blue jay doing its best hawk scream.
Sunny and cool. Above the steady tapping of meltwater from the top roof, the nearly constant calling or singing of chickadees.
Pileated woodpecker drumming in a snowstorm—so loud, so outrageously red—here and gone. While the wet, methodical snow doesn’t miss a twig.
A raven croaks and I see the sun moving backwards—just a sun-sized pit in the clouds glowing as it passes the location of the actual sun.
Another wintry morning, and I’m marveling at the sharpness of the air in my lungs, the sun in my face, the blue sky, the cardinal’s song.
The thermometer’s arrow nudges past 32 in the sun, but the wind’s still cold, and the damp soil at the woods’ edge glitters with needle ice.
Titmouse, chickadee, wren. I squint into the sun. The bitter wind rattles the cover of the magazine beside me—which, I notice, is Rattle.
The wind that shook the house all night has dwindled to an occasional gust. An inch of snow plasters the porch and the east sides of trees.
Overcast and still. A wild goose flies over, honking as if on the proverbial chase. The dry leaves and dead grass begin to tick with rain.
Bright sun on bare trees, whose discarded leaves still glow. Squirrels scold on and on. Finally a hawk-shaped shadow detaches from an oak.
Clear sky. A bluebird warbling up by the barn. High overhead, a pair of ravens fly close together, uttering their most musical croaks.
Bright sun for the first time in days. The wild rhododendron up in the woods shines like a city of glass seen from an airplane window.
The rain finally stops. In the woods and yard, chipmunks zip back and forth like hyperactive exoparasites on the mountain’s glistening pelt.