Clear and cool. Snow is mostly gone from the hillside, but the newly uncovered leaf duff is still damp and flattened, shining in the sun.
Month: March 2019
I dreamt I was awoken by the first phoebe of spring. Instead, snowflakes blossom on my coat, and two crows argue back and forth.
Dark clouds in the west lit up by the sun—backdrop for the first turkey vultures of spring, 14 of them, circling. A field sparrow sings.
Five Canada geese who’ve never seen Canada fly low overhead—half a V. Five minutes later, a proper V of tundra swans, high, whistling north.
For every red-bellied woodpecker trill, the white-breasted nuthatch has a response, low and nasal. A cold wind on my freshly barbered neck.
Warm sun, cold breeze. I watch a ladybug’s slow ascent of a porch column. From the back of the house, thawed ice collapsing in a downspout.
Crows call through the fog. I open my book to a haiku about crows calling through fog. Having melted a bit, the snow is again a blank page.
Sunny and warm. Meltwater drips furiously onto the broken bones of icicles. The deep blue sky of late morning is all but empty of jets.
The sun’s slow fadeout. Two male cardinals travel together to the stream and back again—flashes of color in an increasingly monochrome yard.
Overcast and cold. One by one the birds fly down to the stream, hop around, drink, fly up, and sing. Snowflakes blow past. A tree groans.
Overcast and bitter cold. A Carolina wren comes out from under the house and rummages in the dry leaves behind the oil tanks.
Sunny and cold. A titmouse call takes me back to that time one nested outside my window and woke me each morning like an elfin rooster.
Snow blowing off the trees mingles with fresh flakes. Cloud shadow subsumes tree shadows like a malnourished rabbit reabsorbing her young.
Sky and ground both flat white. A squirrel missing a quarter of her tail is fossicking through the snow, ignored by a high-speed chipmunk.