The ground is mostly bare again, but the wind is salted with more fine flakes. Water thunders in every ditch. A freight train wails.
Dave Bonta
March 10, 2011
Hard rain falling into slush, and the fog thickening: cloud into cloud. Buds glow yellow on the lilac where two titmice flit.
March 9, 2011
Cold and gray. The groundhogs are snarling under the house. A squirrel disinters its breakfast and cleans off the dirt with its teeth.
March 8, 2011
Trying to like this late snow, its sparkles and shadows, I hear the distant cries of swans, fleeing north in search of true tundra.
March 7, 2011
Snow has turned all the lower limbs into wide white feathers, but treetops are bare against the blue. From somewhere in between, the hawk.
March 6, 2011
Small rain on an east wind. Swelling buds impart a faint red hue to the woods’ edge, and a song sparrow states the obvious: spring is here.
March 5, 2011
Overcast and quiet. The remaining snowbanks like beached white whales dampen the leaves around them with their slow collapse.
March 4, 2011
An urgent, nasal call: the Cooper’s hawks are back. The female glides into a tall pine while the male appears and disappears among the oaks.
March 3, 2011
Three days past the last rain, the creek sings in a lower key, like a boy turning into a man. Free of silt, it’s learning how to be blue.
March 2, 2011
Clear, cold and windy. A turkey vulture slides sideways above the trees, rocking on its rigid wings like a catamaran crossing a rough sea.
March 1, 2011
Backlit by the sun, the weathered mountain laurel bushes turn to green fire under the trees, with pale shadows that must be patches of snow.
February 28, 2011
After all-night rain, snow cover persists in the woods, but it must be thin. The trees loom and fade as the fog shifts. The stream roars.
February 27, 2011
Three stalks of garlic in the yard have kept their heads throughout this long winter, seasoning the snows. The distant fluting of geese.
February 26, 2011
Gray sky. A gray breast feather floats down and lands on the snow. Ten minutes later, a sharp-shinned hawk appears in the big maple.