Two chickadees chase through the lilac and end up perched on adjacent twigs, ruffling their feathers—close as any pair of mobster enemies.
Dave Bonta
I study the twists and curlicues of dried brome grass against the snow. If I knew Arabic, I’m sure I’d find some of the 99 names of God.
Drifting snow, just deep enough to provide cover for voles. A snow dervish rises from the road and travels a dozen feet before collapsing.
The landscape conforms to the snowbird’s body plan: gray above, white below. Feathery puffs wherever a bird lands on a snowy branch.
Dawn unveils a new snowfall light as down, all horizontal limbs redrawn in white like colonies of the horizon. I sit clipping my nails.
In the still air, a small disk of ash falls spinning like a demonic snowflake. The sun smolders on the ridgetop between columns of oaks.
Flakes in the air and the barest fur on the ground, like a leaf’s glaucous bloom. A low-key chattering match of nuthatches 100 yards apart.
It’s still mostly dark when the first faint pink spot appears in the clouds: day advancing like a disease, slow and red. A raven croaks.
The return of the cold has saved the last, handkerchief-sized patches of snow. In the east, a silent jet trails the smallest of wakes.
The shadow of my head reflected by the window behind me appears on the railing beside my feet. A south wind slams the corncrib door.
Gray sky thin as an eyelid for the sun’s approximate blaze. The distant gargles of an 18-wheeler jake-breaking into town set off the crows.
From over the ridge, a patrolman’s amplified voice, his words unintelligible. A blue jay does his best impression of a red-tailed hawk.
I stare bleary-eyed at a chickadee darting through the lilac, listen to dueting wrens. The sun, too, is blurred by a kind of mucous.
Feathery contrails outline a wedge of blue. On a high branch, three mourning doves sit facing the sunrise. The middle one preens its wings.