Dark clouds against light clouds. A distant helicopter. A white-throated sparrow’s plaintive song wandering up and down the scale.
clouds
11/20/2014
Overcast except for a hole where the sun glows like a bleary eye in a socket. A titmouse taps on a windowsill to open a sunflower seed.
11/10/2014
Bands of cirrus that might’ve been contrails two hours ago are crossed by a helicopter, ponderous and loud, like an enormous scarab.
9/14/2014
A cold morning. Two chipmunks calling 100 yards apart fall in and out of sync. Thin clouds block the sun before it ever reaches the porch.
5/8/2014
From just above the ridge, the tremolo call of a loon. I rush to the edge of the porch and scan the lake-blue fissures between the clouds.
4/5/2014
Trees sway and gyrate under a blue-gray sky. In a lull between gusts, a lost leaf flutters down out of the clouds. The phoebe calls.
3/25/2014
A solid gray sky marred only by the sun’s blurred searchlight. It’s cold. From all directions, the anxious-sounding calls of woodpeckers.
3/20/2014
Dark clouds, and a sombre brightness underneath. A few, wet flakes of snow swirl past. Robin song.
3/15/2014
Holes open and close in the fast-moving clouds. Where the snow has gone from the yard, a white eggshell rests on the flattened stiltgrass.
2/24/2014
Cold and bright. The trees stand in their melted pits, legacy of the recent thaw. I watch the wind shred a fast-moving cloud.
2/23/2014
In the silence after the bulldozer stops, a song sparrow sings his lying spring song over and over. A gauze of stratus cloud dims the sun.
2/11/2014
It’s cold. A few, desultory flakes drift down from a half-clear sky. The trees’ long shadows fade in and out.
2/8/2014
Sunlight softened by high clouds. A great stillness, punctuated by the flutter of sparrow wings and a chickadee singing its spring song.
1/28/2014
It’s very cold. I’m glad for the sun, which however soon begins to pulse as thin, parallel clouds move in, as regular as waves on a beach.