A titmouse lands in the dead cherry tree, reaches into the cracked bark, pulls out a sunflower seed and taps it open, pausing twice to sing.
January 29, 2011
It’s snowing again. A blue jay keeps returning to the same high limb to eat snow, as if it can’t find that exact flavor anywhere else.
January 28, 2011
The silence of falling snow. When my furnace kicks on, the three deer digging under the wild apple tree startle and run down the slope.
January 27, 2011
A large white bird—albino crow? Lost seagull?—glimpsed through the snow, agglomerated flakes as big as small leaves, rocking and spinning.
January 26, 2011
A distant quarry truck’s reverse beeper has gone bad, and trills just like a digital alarm clock. Dueling chickadees tumble through the air.
January 25, 2011
Low clouds, and the highway—almost inaudible for weeks—sounds close. The air shimmers. I stick an arm out, and white motes dot my sleeve.
January 24, 2011
The ugly squat burdock has a thin and graceful shadow. It inches over the snow without getting snagged by the sharp sparkles of sun.
January 23, 2011
In the bitter night, a white-footed mouse bounded unerringly from the corner of the wall to a hole 20 feet away. The snow is my newspaper.
January 22, 2011
Intense cold, and a stillness so deep the trains can barely be heard. A cardinal flickers like a pilot light under the bridal wreath bush.
January 21, 2011
Juncos fill the lilac, nearest cover to an unfrozen section of stream. Five or six at a time they flutter down to drink from the dark water.
January 20, 2011
Juncos hop on the icy snow between the cattails where a rabbit disappeared fifteen minutes earlier, taking the darkness with it.
January 19, 2011
After last night’s rain, the snow fits each dip and hummock more tightly, like a garment shrunk in the wash. The creaking of doves’ wings.
January 18, 2011
Fine snow blurs the edges of the porch. The feral cat has walked in her own footsteps through the garden, a clear print in each old crater.
January 17, 2011
A titmouse lands in the cherry, the streak in his breast the same rust as a tree sparrow’s cap, a broomsedge stem, these icicles at sunrise.