Snow-covered hillside in the half-dark: every tree, bush and log adrift in blankness. The dog statue in the lawn still wears a white stripe.
January 18, 2008
Branches plastered with white still provoke that old schoolboy excitement: a snow day! The wet tips of the icicles tremble in the dawn wind.
January 17, 2008
Gray sky with streaks of blonde. A house finch turning its squeaky wheel goes all up and down the scale—a tangle of notes.
January 16, 2008
Spindly icicles glitter on the eaves, stunted by too little of the white soil they need to grow, thinned by too much of the life-giving sun.
January 15, 2008
Not all natural sounds are pleasant, not all industrial sounds are ugly: the train whistle sounds so much better than a scolding squirrel!
January 14, 2008
A new skim of snow on the gray-brown surface of the world. Scattered flakes so small and light they hardly seem to be headed for the ground.
January 13, 2008
The tops of the birches still sway where a squirrel passed through half a minute before. Went in town yesterday, and I’m still seeing faces.
January 12, 2008
Headlights briefly rake the porch. Then back to darkness, inhabited by wind, running water, and hunters climbing quietly into the trees.
January 11, 2008
Hard rain. Under a monochrome cloud ceiling, the colors are intense: laurel green, tree-trunk sable, dried-grass yellow, leaf-litter rust.
January 10, 2008
Canada geese en masse may remind us of choiring angels, but a lone goose sounds ridiculous, like a boy with a changing voice trying to sing.
January 9, 2008
Wind. No birds, no squirrels, no highway or railroad noise; just wind. And the feral cat, looking for breakfast in every swaying covert.
January 8, 2008
A second day of warmth and a strong inversion layer. This morning the air is loud with trucks; by afternoon it will be teeming with insects.
January 7, 2008
Almost as warm outside as in. Two deer trot past, their gray coats shining, the trees behind them dark from last night’s rain.
January 6, 2008
Dripping fog, the snow reduced to patches. Mating season has come for the great-horned owls calling in the distance, one high, one low.