Plummer’s Hollow

Wednesday February 06, 2019

Dave Bonta February 6, 2019 0

Cold rain; the snowpack is in tatters now. At the top of a locust snag, a gray squirrel’s tail waves and twitches like a mad flag.

Dave Bonta February 5, 2019 0

Small clouds rise from the decaying snowpack and drift off through the trees. In the yard, a vole’s tunnel system is beginning to emerge.

Dave Bonta February 4, 2019 0

The snow has gone slushy, turning the hollow from a soundproof room into an echo chamber. Over the traffic noise, a junco’s cadenza.

Dave Bonta February 3, 2019 0

Patches of bare yard dug up by deer. Patches of blue sky which the sun now and then pops through. The drip drip of meltwater from the roof.

Dave Bonta February 2, 2019 0

The sound of two trains approaching a crossing at the same time—their unplanned duet. I study the tracks in the yard, looking for groundhog.

Dave Bonta February 1, 2019 1

Snow fine as fingerprint powder; it’s almost zero. Two cardinals and a jay in the crabapple tree wait their turn to drink from the spring.

Dave Bonta January 31, 2019 0

Through my thick hat I can hear wind hissing in the pines, the moan of an amorous squirrel, a tree popping from the cold—loud as a gunshot.

Dave Bonta January 30, 2019 1

Take one polar vortex. Add westerly winds, seasoned lightly with snow. Stir in some birds and trees. Heat with a star 93 million miles away.

Dave Bonta January 29, 2019 0

Another snowfall. The small hole in the yard that leads to an underground stream remains open, like a breathing hole for seals in sea ice.

Dave Bonta January 28, 2019 0

The fast scrabbling of claws on black locust bark: another squirrel’s in heat. Dead grass blades along the stream are rococo with hoarfrost.