Fifteen minutes after sunrise, the cloud-lid lifts, and a bright seam appears above the horizon. A white-throated sparrow sings two notes and stops.
clouds
Under a gray lid of cloud, the sound of steady dripping as roofs shed their snow. A cat lying in ambush has its cover blown by chickadees.
Thin clouds at sunrise with the blue just visible, like faded jeans. A crow has a brief exchange with his echo.
Heavily overcast at sunrise, which I’m taking on faith. The sound of a Carolina wren hopping across the porch roof.
Cold and still. The mid-morning sun is a faint smudge in the treetops. A flicker flutters into a barberry bush and begins to gorge.
A late-morning brightness in the clouds. A white-breasted nuthatch descending a tall black locust turns right-side-up.
Heavily overcast at sunrise; only the ground glows a faint pink, thick with rain-slick leaves. A screech owl trills.
Mostly overcast and quiet, apart from the wind. A squirrel with an acorn in her mouth pauses for a split second at the end of a branch, then leaps.
Overcast; the smell of rain. Cattail leaves rattle faintly. A few tiny patches of snow linger in the tall grass.
As cold as yesterday but with orange-bellied clouds and a wind. A tulip tree seed helicopters into the yard and rises up over the house.
Heavy cloud cover. A gray squirrel chiseling open a walnut squats on a low branch with its tail curled over its head for warmth.
Snowflakes floating down from a patchy sky, where the third-quarter moon appears and disappears. The distant fluting of geese.
Unseasonably warm with a lowering sky. A six-point buck emerges from the woods and struts over to the stream as a doe looks on.
Sun through a scrim of cloud. From within a flame-leaved barberry bush, the crisp ticking of a junco.