A yellow gash appears in the clouds to the east and heals up again. The cardinal attacks his reflection. Military jets howl over, unseen.
January 2020
January 11, 2020
Unseasonably warm. A patchy gray sky. Gliding high above the trees, a vulture, unseasonably far north.
January 10, 2020
Overcast. A strong smell of sewage from the treatment plant two miles away. Juncos forage in the dead stiltgrass, chirping back and forth.
January 9, 2020
Cold and still. Mares’ tails running north-south slowly soften into wool. Fresh tire tracks on the road. A crow’s distant note of protest.
January 8, 2020
The snow squall stops just before I come out all bundled up and squinting at the sun, the porch two inches deep in windblown snow.
January 7, 2020
Snow. I unfocus my gaze and the flakes become threads, runnels, roots. I remember a dream in which my beard had grown down to the ground.
January 6, 2020
Sun through trees. Where one squirrel has just raced over the snow another squirrel follows, pausing in the same places. The allure of heat.
January 5, 2020
Snowflakes in the air give shape to the wind. I sneeze, and a pileated woodpecker emerges from the far side of an oak and flies off.
January 4, 2020
Sky nearly as gray as the woods. A gray squirrel runs between the trees, and the rain-softened leaf duff makes hardly a sound.
January 3, 2020
Light rain. Fog forms up on the ridge and drifts down through the trees like a ghost army, loud with the sounds of traffic.
January 2, 2020
Slow trickle of water in the ditch. Weak sun. My mom stops by to talk about logging and politics, and how the old field is full of sparrows.
January 1, 2020
Fresh snow melting on the porch roof—a curtain of drips. Chickadees’ cheerful calls are the first thing I hear: a good omen, I think.