No sign of the sun after a lurid dawn—the forecasted rain has its P.R. down. I can smell it. I listen for the first drops through a torrent of birdsong.
Plummer’s Hollow
High clouds yellow with sunrise appear to have some business off to the east. A downy woodpecker on a dead locust limb fires off a blast beat.
An hour past sunrise, it’s mostly clear and quiet except for two red-bellied woodpeckers, their whinnying starting to sound almost like purrs.
The western ridge turns barn-red with sunrise. As it fades to gold, down in the hollow a mob of crows starts up, jeering, denouncing.
Twenty minutes till sunrise, the half moon’s fuzzy ear. A mourning dove starts to call, taking a few tries to get the right notes.
Bright and cold. I pull down my hat brim to see the shadows of the trees striping my yard. Valley noise is minimal but for one train horn, clear as a blast on an angel’s trumpet.
Two pileated woodpeckers forage for breakfast, resolutely hammering as all the trees around their dead snags rock in the wind.
Nearly an hour past the alleged sunrise, the sky brightens and birds recover their voices, wren and nuthatch synchronizing like some sort of happiness machine.
An hour before sunrise, the yard is flooded with moonlight for a few moments, till the rift in the clouds drifts on to uncover a sliver of dawn sky, the last few stars.
The squirrel who de-husks walnuts atop the wall next to the lilac stops short when she sees that her piles have been swept away. She noses the spots, tail flickering above her like a gray flame.
Dull gray clouds since well before sunrise, but the cardinal is an engine of cheer. It’s two degrees above freezing. Anything could happen.
Full moon over the ridge an hour before sunrise turns fuzzy as thin, high clouds move in, fading out instead of setting. A dog barks in the distance.
-14C at dawn and very still. A sound like a rifle shot as some tree’s heartwood splits open. Two distant bugle notes from a Canada goose.
-12C with a wind. Which one of those small pink clouds is responsible for these snowflakes? My oil furnace trembles under the house like a wounded animal.