Clouds selectively erasing the stars at dawn. A strong inversion layer: traffic noise from the interstate mingles with barred owl calls.
clouds
Cold and mostly overcast, but the rising sun strikes my face a full hour earlier due to overnight thinning of the leaves.
Dawn. Clouds glow with the lights from town. The great bulk of the lilac against the dark woods, trembling in the wind.
Heavily overcast and quiet at dawn. A low surf of crickets. From the spruce grove a half mile away, a barred owl’s hoo-aw.
Overcast with fog that thins out for the purported sunrise. It’s warm enough that one tree cricket trills in the herb garden.
High, slow-moving reefs of cloud at sunrise. The white-throated sparrows in the meadow conclude their chittering and go their separate ways.
A cold and windy dawn. The crescent moon drowns in a sorcery of pink.
Slightly warmer. Alarmed chipmunks go in and out of sync. The slow hegemony of clouds.
Sunrise has been delayed by clouds, but I hold out hope. A wren tuts impatiently. A train horn blows a flat minor chord.
Dawn. I watch the stars fade then brighten again, as a thin veil of cloud I hadn’t noticed moves off like a lizard’s third eyelid.
Overcast, windy and cold at dawn. Soft thuds as the black walnut tree releases its ordnance onto the road.
Windy and cold (40F/5C). A sudden outpouring of Canada goose music. The sun comes out from behind the only cloud.
Dawn. The last katydid falls silent. The fourth-quarter moon, curled up like a dried fish, disappears into a cloud.
Cold (46F) with thin, high clouds. Black walnuts knocking on the roof. A red-tailed hawk drops in to visit the squirrels.