White above, white below, and the dried weedstalks in the yard a scale model of the woods. A wren circulates with a brief news bulletin.
The wind was busy while I slept. Is this the same snow I swept off the porch yesterday? A nuthatch probes the cherry with its clinical bill.
The close sweep of a woodpecker’s wings sets off a squirrel, who scolds for ten minutes until a male cardinal appears, red as a stop sign.
My breath is so thick I can hardly see. Through the hood of my coat I can just make out a pileated woodpecker drumming a half-mile away.
Ten degrees Fahrenheit with a wind. An oak leaf skitters across the snow on its pointed tips, bumping through a forest of dead weeds.
The snow’s blowing from the east; I’m quickly covered. With my new white fur I will go crouch over a rabbit’s burrow, Nanook of the South.
A shimmer so fine it takes me five minutes to ascertain that it is snow, not rain. Dove wings whistle and a raven croaks: no dry land here!
Snow! Snow snowing on snow. Snow snowily snows. Snowy, snowier, snowiest snow. Snow snow snow! (Ice? No.)
Cold—the porch boards pop under my feet. A yearling doe walks by with her fur puffed out. But the stream’s gurgle remains unmuffled by ice.
Wind roars on the ridgetop; dervishes of snow in the yard. A loud rending—some trunk or limb—and I hold my breath waiting for the crash.
Bitter wind, and a skim of new snow fills in the dips and wrinkles, making the icy snowpack look young again. The screech of a jay.
Yesterday’s slush has set like poorly mixed concrete, and the road’s slick as glass. The Carolina wren sings a song I’ve never heard before.
In the steady rain, a squirrel grabs an unburied black walnut from under the walnut-stained slush and carries it back up the tree.
The predicted icestorm has yet to start. Long minutes pass between the distant noise of engines. A raven croaks. The stream’s slow trickle.