Day Six of the thaw, and the sound of running water dominates the pre-dawn darkness—still faintly illuminated by the threadbare snow.
Dave Bonta
The overcast sky looks the same, but the light turns from glow to dull in just 15 minutes. I watch a brown creeper but hear only nuthatches.
Fog. A distant chainsaw in one direction and in the other, rodent teeth. Amorous squirrels race back and forth over the white ground.
Day 3 of the thaw. A month’s worth of apple cores are beginning to surface. Inside on my computer screen, via webcam, a black bear sleeps.
Out earlier than usual, it takes me much too long to understand why the cloudy sky is darker than the snow. Black coffee, enlighten me!
Clear at sunrise, and just two degrees below freezing. A squirrel in the treetops touches its snout to the light’s leading edge.
Quiet at mid-morning except for the yank, yank of a nuthatch and the creaking of trees in what feels like it could become a clearing wind.
I can’t bring myself to sweep the new snow off the porch—such lovely stuff! But less than a minute later, I lapse into wool-gathering.
Finishing my coffee, I walk to the edge of the porch and stop short: the western horizon is a dark battleship gray, an anti-sunrise.
While chickadees call, a raven croaks, and snow glitters in the air, the sun steals above the horizon like a Hun, one blade at a time.
The wind has erased all but three footprints of a deer trail across the yard. In winter, you don’t connect the dots—you supply the dots.
A strong wind, and the branches let go of the snow they acquired overnight, big pieces sailing out and dissolving like boats made of salt.
White above, white below, and the dried weedstalks in the yard a scale model of the woods. A wren circulates with a brief news bulletin.
The wind was busy while I slept. Is this the same snow I swept off the porch yesterday? A nuthatch probes the cherry with its clinical bill.