Meltwater roars in the creek. In the orange glow of sunrise, the cardinals emerge from the juniper tree, singing.
Fog on snow. The hidden full moon’s false dawn obscures the real one. Distant traffic is drowned out by the sound of rushing water.
Fog blurs the difference between the white below and above, the trees reduced to gray wraiths as a Carolina wren sings for the break of day.
Damp and cold. Snowmelt drips from the roof. A blue jay makes a half-hearted hawk-scream and fall silent.
As below, so above, the trees marooned in a flat whiteness no less absolute than that of a blank page, albeit one navigated by squirrels.
Between moonset and dawn, a dark hour filled with the sound of freight trains. I hold my head still to watch Venus slip through the trees.
I’m grateful to the snowflakes for mostly not landing on the pages of my book and sailing on by. Am I fully acclimated to the winter now? It’s disconcerting how much the darkness has receded, only a month past the solstice.
Deep cold. The sound of wind mingling with the dull howl of distant jets. Two dead leaves pick this moment to finally let go and twirl up through their small oak into the clouds.
First light. White lines crisscross the dark edge of the woods: snow on trees. I stick my hand out to feel it falling, flakes as fine as dust melting into my palm.
A gray squirrel on a gray morning, having tunneled through snow and frozen earth to disinter a black walnut, squats on a dead limb of a dead maple, gnawing at the rock-hard shell.
Five degrees and breezy. The creek still gurgles, low and slow, with Venus through the trees flickering like a candle in the wind.
Snow falling at dawn—fine flakes at first, then larger and faster as the darkness subsides, as if they’re emissaries for the day. A chickadee sings his wistful, two-note song.
7F/-14C at dawn. The rifle-crack of a tree with ice in its heartwood. I peer like some ancient mummy through my layers of cloth.
Snow at first light—a silent mob of moving shadows, pecks on my cheek—then as dawn approaches, the slow differentiation of black and swirling white.