A morning for woodpeckers: I hear the trilling of a red-bellied, the cackling of a pileated, and a downy’s steady trepanning of a maple.
February 23, 2010
Thick fog prolongs the early-morning light for hours. The cardinal sings spring while a screech owl quavers over the luminous snow.
February 22, 2010
That metronome-like sound—could it possibly be a chipmunk? I cup hands to my ears: no, it’s just slow meltwater. But the clock is ticking.
February 21, 2010
The nasal call of a jay became the soundtrack of happiness one sun-drenched afternoon of my childhood. The place is gone now—a subdivision.
February 20, 2010
Fresh excavations in the yard—a puzzle. Have the deer developed a taste for myrtle, the green of its leathery leaves under all that snow?
February 19, 2010
Late morning, and the gray gives way to deepest blue. Treetops clack like rib-bone castanets, gleaming in the sun.
February 18, 2010
The dog statue in the yard is still buried except for its vigilant tail. On either side, the excavations of deer.
February 17, 2010
I strain to hear the waking birds, but sound is out of the west: cars, trucks, winter tires—the fossil-fueled Fat Tuesday that never ends.
February 16, 2010
Fine powder on the wind. The locust tree at the woods’ edge is suddenly full of creaks, like a lapsed Trappist relearning how to talk.
February 15, 2010
Bright midmorning. Among the shadows in my yard, one patch of light that’s almost barren of sparkles: reflection from a second-story window.
February 14, 2010
Gray mid-morning, and the sound of bells comes and goes on the wind. A downy woodpecker telegraphs his hunger from a limb of the big maple.
February 13, 2010
My eyes water from lack of sleep, and the sun too looks bleary, shining through clouds. A sudden loud sigh from the vicinity of the pines.
February 12, 2010
A silent ordnance drifting on the wind crumbles on impact against my legs. I suddenly realize I haven’t heard a Carolina wren in weeks.
February 11, 2010
Foot-deep drifts across the porch, and the western ridge is plastered white. Above the snow-banshees, I hear blue jays calling.