Leap day. The sun comes out while snowflakes still circle the house. Around the old ruin of a dog statue, daffodils’ green fingertips.
February 2020
February 28, 2020
A fresh dusting of snow slowly vanishes—but if the sun has a tongue, the breeze has a bite. The methodical taptaptap of a downy woodpecker.
February 27, 2020
The ground is white again, and the shape of the wind sketched out by flying flakes. A tree sparrow sings, homesick perhaps for the tundra.
February 26, 2020
Thick fog: soundproofing against all but the closest chirps. A nuthatch descends a locust trunk, does an about-face, and scuttles back up.
February 25, 2020
The corrugated steel roof over the heating oil tanks registers a small shower I might’ve otherwise missed: soft taps, a scattering of dots.
February 24, 2020
Scattered honks from an unseen traffic of geese above the clouds. It’s warm. The mourning doves are finishing each other’s sentences.
February 23, 2020
Squirrel claws scrabbling on bark; song sparrow songs. The sun gleams on the glossy black wings of a vulture skimming the treetops.
February 21, 2020
A jet drags a vestigial contrail through the treetops, its roar far behind in the great blue bell which, by cliché, this clarity resembles.
February 20, 2020
Palefaced sky with its one glowing orifice. The woodpeckers are busy with surgeries, removing delicious infestations from limb after limb.
February 19, 2020
At blue noon the wailing of fire engines. Mountain laurel leaves gleam in the sun. A cold ladybird’s slow plod.
February 18, 2020
Under a low, dark cloud ceiling, the echoing call and response of two mourning doves. A quiet gurgle from the stream. Not a breath of wind.
February 17, 2020
Warm sun, soft shadows. Two red-bellied woodpeckers: one trills, the other rasps. I think of Ecclesiastes: “But the earth abideth forever.”
February 15, 2020
An almost-out sun slowly erases the morning’s hoarfrost, except on the stream banks, where ferns of ice still hang over the dark water.
February 14, 2020
Cold, with an icy breeze that creeps under both my hoods. A dusting of snow. The distant sound of a door slamming shut.