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
2/28/2020
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.
2/27/2020
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.
2/26/2020
Thick fog: soundproofing against all but the closest chirps. A nuthatch descends a locust trunk, does an about-face, and scuttles back up.
2/25/2020
The corrugated steel roof over the heating oil tanks registers a small shower I might’ve otherwise missed: soft taps, a scattering of dots.
2/24/2020
Scattered honks from an unseen traffic of geese above the clouds. It’s warm. The mourning doves are finishing each other’s sentences.
2/23/2020
Squirrel claws scrabbling on bark; song sparrow songs. The sun gleams on the glossy black wings of a vulture skimming the treetops.
2/21/2020
A jet drags a vestigial contrail through the treetops, its roar far behind in the great blue bell which, by cliché, this clarity resembles.
2/20/2020
Palefaced sky with its one glowing orifice. The woodpeckers are busy with surgeries, removing delicious infestations from limb after limb.
2/19/2020
At blue noon the wailing of fire engines. Mountain laurel leaves gleam in the sun. A cold ladybird’s slow plod.
2/18/2020
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.
2/17/2020
Warm sun, soft shadows. Two red-bellied woodpeckers: one trills, the other rasps. I think of Ecclesiastes: “But the earth abideth forever.”
2/15/2020
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.
2/14/2020
Cold, with an icy breeze that creeps under both my hoods. A dusting of snow. The distant sound of a door slamming shut.