Behind the sky’s thin skin, the sun is lurid as a bruise. More snow on the way. Six doves take off at once—the piccolo noise of their wings.
Plummer’s Hollow
Warm sun on new snow. From behind the house, the high-pitched whistling of waxwings. The porch roof’s last, snaggletoothed icicle lets go.
Now that the wind has died, I can admire its work: the yard scoured like a salt flat, the stream turned into a canyon with dangerous curves.
Very cold (-20C). A locust tree with ice in its joints creaks and bangs in the wind. Through a hat and two hoods I hear a cardinal singing.
From the valley, a wailing duet of fire sirens. Woodpeckers tap and listen, tap and listen, as the soft, light snow goes on falling.
Bright sun, and meltwater drips from the roof despite the cold. I think about microclimates—pits in the snow around dark goldenrod stalks.
Another flash mob of crows—a knot, a clot. (No murder yet.) A sudden snow squall and my dark jeans and coat are studded with stars.
The small hole in the yard that leads to the underground stream has melted open, dark as a blowhole in the skin of a white whale.
A sudden clamor of crows mobbing some unseen hawk or owl up on the ridge—that tone of righteous fury transcending language.
Thick fog. A steady drumming of snowmelt on the porch roof. A bluejay in the barberry, out of what looks like sheer boredom, begins to yell.
A gray day loud with traffic. The snowpack has slid half-way off the metal roof over the oil tanks, curling under the eaves like a claw.
A gray morning. I notice, silhouetted against the snow, how all the heads in each patch of wild garlic are bent in the same direction.
The only tracks on the road are mine, and the only clouds are right where the sun is. I hear heavy wingbeats followed by a raven’s croak.
Cold again after yesterday’s thaw. A mourning dove flutters down into the lilac, gets settled on a branch and closes its eyes.