Snowflakes swirl past and vanish into the weeds. Only the springhouse roof is cold enough for them, but soon it too turns back to gray.
Plummer’s Hollow
In the poor light, the quick movements of birds: those that chatter, those that flutter, those that scuttle like beetles, those that tap.
Despite the fact that we’ve had no snow yet, the Japanese stiltgrass is already lying down in spiral patterns with here and there a cowlick.
Overcast and cold. Wind hissing in the dry goldenrod and rattling the half-bare crowns of the oaks. A distant crow.
After another cold night, the lilac is carpeting its corner of the yard with the yellow-green curls of its suddenly devalued currency.
Four degrees above freezing. When I nudge the foot of a hornet clinging to the bottom of the railing, she swings her leg out in a slow arc.
A large flock of Canada geese flies low overhead. As I listen to them fade away, I think about the Doppler Effect—how it flavors parting.
Sunny and almost warm. Armadas of leaves sail out across the meadow. A pale green lacewing flutters past the porch, fighting a headwind.
In the dim light, the sound of eight bone knives being whetted against a sapling. The buck straightens up and gives me a baleful look.
Juncos forage in the meadow, softly twittering. The dull booms of distant gunshots like great lead spikes being driven into the earth.
The tulip poplar’s green and gold leaves look almost as they did at first emergence back in May. But their whispering is so much louder now.
At the base of the hill, the meadow is white with frost. A small deer carries the white torch of its tail up into the sunlit woods.
Fourth-quarter moon in the branches of the black walnut, facing back toward the east and the first stain of dawn.
Cold and clear. Half the trees on the ridge are bare now, leaving narrow, blue windows all along the crest for the sun to pour through.