Two degrees above freezing, but it feels balmy. I try to guess the sun’s position by the relative brightness of thin spots in the clouds.
clouds
12/10/2020
Heavy cloud cover. A flash of red from a male cardinal cutting through the yard. Gray heads of goldenrod almost shine in the gloom.
12/9/2020
Light clouds in the east, dark clouds in the west, and everywhere the hush of the wind. A hawk goes by too fast for the squirrels to notice.
12/8/2020
Bright sun, icy breeze. A few flakes zoom past. The only cloud is tiny and dissolves as I watch, leaving the sky to the fourth-quarter moon.
12/6/2020
Cloud cover riddled with blue holes, though the sun remains hidden. From beside the springhouse, a higher-pitched, thinner chickadee call.
12/1/2020
Gray snow clouds with a brief peephole for the sun. As flakes swirl down, snowbirds swirl up into the trees, egged on by a Carolina wren.
11/26/2020
A few blue fissures in the clouds. A tree sparrow explores the ridges and valleys of the corrugated steel roof over the oil tanks.
11/17/2020
Sun leaking from a cut in the clouds that soon heals shut. Now a heavy grayness. The pines hiss like respirators.
11/16/2020
A cold front roared in overnight. Now the wind has dropped and the clouds are clearing out. Tall goldenrod stalks shake their gray heads.
11/5/2020
Mackerel sky like a furrowed brow. One, three, six blue jays descend on the feeder. The squirrel flees. One jay screams like a hawk.
10/30/2020
Five minutes after I check the weather app to verify it’s going to stay cloudy, the sun comes out. The damp forest glistens like a salamander.
10/20/2020
Under a low cloud ceiling, the thunder of trains and traffic from the valley. The black cat’s deadly silence trips a gray-squirrel alarm.
10/13/2020
Mizzle: the wet feet of a cloud that slowly settles over the glowing trees, the lone, anxious jay, the clarinet voices of wild geese.
4/23/2020
Rising late, I sit gazing at the blank white sky and recalling my dreams: Mom turned into a zombie, stove possessed by demons, me applying for a job as a bus driver.