A few blue fissures in the clouds. A tree sparrow explores the ridges and valleys of the corrugated steel roof over the oil tanks.
clouds
Sun leaking from a cut in the clouds that soon heals shut. Now a heavy grayness. The pines hiss like respirators.
A cold front roared in overnight. Now the wind has dropped and the clouds are clearing out. Tall goldenrod stalks shake their gray heads.
Mackerel sky like a furrowed brow. One, three, six blue jays descend on the feeder. The squirrel flees. One jay screams like a hawk.
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.
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.
Mizzle: the wet feet of a cloud that slowly settles over the glowing trees, the lone, anxious jay, the clarinet voices of wild geese.
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.
Holes in the clouds by late morning. Field sparrows trill almost non-stop. My mother says she can smell my coffee way up in the woods.
A sunny morning foreclosed upon by leaden clouds. The phoebe continues to rant from atop a black walnut sapling, marking time with his tail.
Rain past, the hollow is full of birds. Fast moving clouds. A Carolina wren sings exultantly through a high gust of wind.
Under a low, dark cloud ceiling, the echoing call and response of two mourning doves. A quiet gurgle from the stream. Not a breath of wind.
Sunlight filtered through thin clouds looks somehow warmer than it is. Silence embellished by the resonant knocks of a pileated woodpecker.
Sky gray as the skin of a corpse. An internal combustion engine’s profane orison. Some small bird hammering at the seed of a sunflower.