Cold and still at sunrise. A chipmunk pops up from under the house and scuttles over to the stone wall, where it stops to watch the clouds turn colors.
February 18, 2024
Through two hats and a hood, the wind’s bitter whisper reaches my ear. Odd moans and creaking sounds issue from the trees, whose dark silhouettes stretch between two absences. Then first light and the cooing of doves.
February 17, 2024
Patches of blue sky at sunrise. A red-tailed hawk sits in a high oak limb, pale breast half-camouflaged against the snow that fell in the night.
February 16, 2024
Impossible to distinguish the sound of the ridgetop wind from the rumble of freight trains below. The stars fade. A small high cloud turns pink.
February 15, 2024
Very cold and still. The clear sky at dawn has gone white. Crows call to crows. The floorboards shiver when my furnace kicks on.
February 14, 2024
Cold and clearing off for sunrise. From some sheltered spot, a Carolina wren is duetting with the wind.
February 13, 2024
A filigreed fretwork of wet snow clinging to everything. From the valley, the wail of sirens. The cloud cover thins to a kind of brightness.
February 12, 2024
Overcast and quiet an hour before dawn. From the spruce grove a half mile away, a barred owl’s single Who. The stench of diesel.
February 11, 2024
Very still under a bone-white sky. A Carolina wren rummages under the house. In the treetops a gray squirrel takes an improbable leap.
February 10, 2024
Unseasonably warm and very quiet. Sunrise appears through a rift in the clouds: gold in the east, black in the west. The last five piles of icy snow look as out of place as alien spacecrafts.
February 9, 2024
A mottled sky half an hour past sunrise. It’s quiet. The dove who was calling at first light, as if it were March already, must’ve gone back to sleep.
February 8, 2024
Dawn clouds stacked liked a ladder of blood. Chattering nuthatches. A dove’s breathy song sounds far from mournful.
February 7, 2024
Cold and still all the way to the stars, which are just beginning to fade. A barred owl calls once. The hesitant footfalls of a deer coming down to drink.
February 6, 2024
Clear and cold, the ground gray with frost. Sunrise reddens the western ridge. A propeller plane fades into the distance.