A scurf of fresh snow. Crows getting told off by a raven. Bright patches in the sky—which holds the sun?
clouds
November 20, 2021
A thin wash of cloud at sunrise, and the yard gray with frost. A raven flies low over the hollow giving two-syllable croaks.
November 14, 2021
A blank gray sky, this time of year, is the easiest kind to read: snow, it says, in a slowly accelerating tumble of pure punctuation.
November 11, 2021
Two degrees above freezing, with the sun reduced to a bright smudge by a thin wash of cloud. Juncos and a nuthatch forage at the woods’ edge.
October 27, 2021
The slender reed of a white-throated sparrow’s voice trembles in the wind. A hole opens in the clouds, blue and sunrise pink.
October 24, 2021
Four small patches of blue sky huddle together like blue sheep in a white woolen sky. The wingbeats of crows.
October 17, 2021
Cloudy and cold. In the thinning treetops, a squirrel takes a wild leap to lose a suitor. Tulip tree samaras helicopter down.
October 3, 2021
A low cloud ceiling gravid with rain. It’s quiet. Every few seconds, another yellow leaf zigzags down.
October 2, 2021
Mares’ tails reddening in the east. The reedy songs of white-throated sparrows. A raven’s nasal croak.
September 21, 2021
Under a thinning white sky, the thinning crown of a black cherry tree already less green than salmon. The sunflowers face every direction.
September 10, 2021
In one hole in the clouds a meteor; in another the dawn. The scattered notes of night-flying migrants coming down to roost. A quarry truck beeping.
September 4, 2021
The sun passes through windrows of clouds. It’s quiet. I look forward to another day waiting for the Godot that is a Verizon repairman.
August 17, 2021
Sunrise hidden by clouds. Towhee and cardinal’s usual soliloquies. A mosquito sings her need into my ear.
August 12, 2021
Dawn. A bat zig-zags high over the meadow en route to its roost as the few clouds turn pink.