Titmice and chickadees inspect the lilac, which lost half its leaves overnight. Déjà vu: they were in my dreams, these birds. These spirits.
Dave Bonta
11/22/2007
Something approaches at a slow shuffle, gray in the gray light: porcupine. He threads the thistle patch, squeezes under the porch.
11/21/2007
If woodpeckers are tapping, the sun must be up. The clouds part just long enough to reveal a giant X of jet trails blazing gold.
11/20/2007
Dripdripdrip — rain on the roof. Off in the darkness, the explosive snorting of a deer: coyote? Bear? Human? Something with the wrong odor.
11/19/2007
Under a low cloud cover, the mountain still white with snow, dawn grows from the ground up. My growling stomach is the loudest thing.
11/18/2007
Puffs of white smoke where squirrels forage in snow-covered birches. One squirrel falls twenty feet to the ground and lands with a soft FLUMP.
11/17/2007
An hour before dawn, I sit motionless, watching Venus climb slowly through the leaves of an oak, dazzling first my right eye, then my left.
11/16/2007
A strong gust of wind brings a red oak leaf into my lap. I watch high-flying leaves cross paths with a flock of waxwings.
11/15/2007
Wind and rain. On the ornamental cherry tree beside the porch, fat drops dangle from the bare spots between yellow-orange leaves.
11/14/2007
White sky, white noise from the highway over the ridge. The goldfinches wake all at once, a querulous babble of squeaky wheels.
11/13/2007
Rain drumming on the roof. A single bar of white-throated sparrow song, and then the factory whistle dividing the dawn from the day.
11/12/2007
A pair of ravens fly low over the house, invisible in the fog. I’m lost in thought about trickster gods, and right on cue: Arrk! Arrk! Arrk!
11/11/2007
My left thumb itches, but nothing wickeder than a nuthatch materializes. The sun comes up.
11/10/2007
White on green: the lilac bush heavy with yesterday’s snow. Chickadees bicker, working out a pecking order that will last until spring.