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.
March 2019
3/16/2019
I dreamt I was awoken by the first phoebe of spring. Instead, snowflakes blossom on my coat, and two crows argue back and forth.
3/15/2019
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.
3/14/2019
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.
3/12/2019
For every red-bellied woodpecker trill, the white-breasted nuthatch has a response, low and nasal. A cold wind on my freshly barbered neck.
3/11/2019
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.
3/10/2019
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.
3/9/2019
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.
3/8/2019
The sun’s slow fadeout. Two male cardinals travel together to the stream and back again—flashes of color in an increasingly monochrome yard.
3/7/2019
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.
3/6/2019
Overcast and bitter cold. A Carolina wren comes out from under the house and rummages in the dry leaves behind the oil tanks.
3/5/2019
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.
3/4/2019
Snow blowing off the trees mingles with fresh flakes. Cloud shadow subsumes tree shadows like a malnourished rabbit reabsorbing her young.
3/3/2019
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.