Cold, with an icy breeze that creeps under both my hoods. A dusting of snow. The distant sound of a door slamming shut.
Plummer’s Hollow
Wednesday February 12, 2020
Sunlight filtered through thin clouds looks somehow warmer than it is. Silence embellished by the resonant knocks of a pileated woodpecker.
Tuesday February 11, 2020
Under a leaden sky, rain-fattened patches of moss between the trees are the brightest things. A passing shower’s patter on dead leaves.
Monday February 10, 2020
The sun peeks through a hole in the clouds, turning the drizzle into a feathery shimmer—visual equivalent of the finches’ endless warbling.
Saturday February 08, 2020
Eyes shut to the strong sun, I watch the shadow-flicker of meltwater dripping from the eaves, the icicles letting go like vestigial tails.
Friday February 07, 2020
A half-inch of wet snow blew in so fast, it’s plastered to the sides of trees in lumps. From up on the ridge, the white noise of the wind.
Thursday February 06, 2020
Fog. Trees reduced to their most elemental architecture: an outline, a few brush strokes, nothing. Antagonists to an invisible woodpecker.
Wednesday February 05, 2020
Sky gray as the skin of a corpse. An internal combustion engine’s profane orison. Some small bird hammering at the seed of a sunflower.
Tuesday February 04, 2020
Unseasonably warm. The first half of a song sparrow’s song. Two titmice in the crabapple swipe their bills back and forth on their branches.
Monday February 03, 2020
Sunny and warm. The snow is reduced to patches in the woods. In front of the house, a Carolina wren shrieks abuse at my brother the birder.