Friday February 08, 2019

Dave Bonta February 8, 2019

Last night’s torrential rain has given way to wind, sunlight shimmering on the flooded stream and the waxy leaves of mountain laurel.

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On the snow-covered log beside the stream, the baby's-handprint tracks of raccoons. A wren above the water burbling in counterpoint. …

A great silence punctuated only by an occasional gun shot. A squirrel digs up a black walnut from beside the porch and bounds off with it. …

A few snowflakes scud past. The dried blades of cattail next to the springhouse rattle and hiss. A dead leaf on the road flips over. …

Last night's snow has left a scant half-inch of fur on all the trees—these naked sleepers. Some of it melts, some evaporates into fog. …

After 15 hours of freezing fog, every twig is spiky with eldritch feathers. A squirrel makes a small thunder by running on the crusted snow. …

A flat-gray sky. Train whistles and quarry noise travel up the hollow, accompanying two overlapped umbrellas, one black, one white. …

Clouds creased above the sun's bleary eye. On the sage leaves, hair-thin frost crystals point in all directions—a disheveled pelt. …

Cold, and an iron wind. Two murders of crows rage at each other from the crowns of adjacent oaks, the sunrise slippery on their napes. …

Five inches of fresh slush. Were the woods briefly beautiful at 3:00 am? The cedar tree by the side of the house bends low over the garden. …

How the acoustics vary from one morning to the next! Yesterday, the hollow was a soundproofed room; today it's as echoey as a concert hall. …

Overcast and misty. Beyond the scolding squirrels, a cooing cry I can't place. I'm absurdly pleased with the echo when I break wind. …

The Morning Porch/Patio