Thick fog at dawn, gray against the snow. Slate-colored juncos call back and forth: Where are you? A wind comes up.
December 22, 2007
Yakety-yak on the porch, dee dee dee in the birches, and everywhere a drip drip drip drip drip: gray solstice morning.
December 21, 2007
The sun behind a wash of cirrus seems almost approachable: a bonfire, the eye of a wolf. All the small birds of winter calling at once.
December 20, 2007
Distant sound of a rasp on wood: the porcupine’s last meal of the night. In the springhouse lawn, the silhouette of a cat taking a shit.
December 19, 2007
With the ground white, squirrels are visible hundreds of feet up in the woods. And when I shut my eyes, the trees reappear on my eyelids.
December 18, 2007
Blue sky carved up by the ley lines of industrial man. Who else leaves such arrow-strait trails for mile after mile? Only Coyote.
December 17, 2007
Fresh snow curls in a graceful wave behind each tire of the first car to go down the driveway. Minutes later, the whine of a car in reverse.
December 16, 2007
A lull in the storm, and it’s quiet—no sound of trucks or trains, no Sunday drivers. Squirrel scold-calls echo off the ice.
December 15, 2007
The sun peeks out for half a minute from under a lid of clouds. The downy woodpecker finds a resonant bone of locust and rattles it hard.
December 14, 2007
Riddle me this: no snow fell here, but the ground is white. The trees with their thin coats of ice creak and clatter in the darkness.
December 13, 2007
Tickticktick—sleet slipping through the forest’s net of twigs. Grains with no hourglass, a rush order for all who dream of the beach.
December 12, 2007
Last night, I watched a meteor blaze across a hole in the white clouds. This morning, a full palette of grays. The local star peeks through.
December 11, 2007
Another cold and misty morning. The last of the snow is gone from the hillside. Pressed flat, the leaf litter still glows faintly red.
December 10, 2007
The cooing turned out to be a raven—later on, it was barking like a dog. Rifle season is over, and the mountain is littered with gut piles.