Dawn. The thermometer has dropped to 50°F (10°C). Something small and dark disappears into the tall weeds beside the driveway, setting off first one, then the other Carolina wren. It never reemerges. The sun comes up.
cold
April 28, 2025
Sunrise gutters in a gray bank of clouds. It’s cold. My breath hangs in the air like winter’s ghost.
April 9, 2025
Below freezing still, and the sky more clear than not. Up on the ridge, a hermit thrush is singing: faint chimes, as if some gate to paradise had a doorbell.
February 18, 2025
Deep cold at dawn. Icicles hanging from the eaves bend this way and that. The trees creak and groan. The chip, chip of a cardinal waking up.
January 22, 2025
Two below zero, and at least two gray squirrels are in heat now. I watch a suitor bound over the snow and into the trees, leaping from the twiggy end of one limb to another, finding a way.
January 21, 2025
Zero at dawn, and very quiet. Finally a nuthatch pipes up, followed by a junco. From inside the tall locust tree behind the springhouse, the muffled scolding of red squirrels.
January 20, 2025
A half moon all alone in thin clouds like a lost knife. The plank wall of the house behind me pops from the cold.
January 15, 2025
A fresh scurf of snow on the porch. The trees with their moon-shadows stretching east like dark carpets rolled out for the rumored sun. All the old aches in my body. It’s cold.
January 14, 2025
The deep cold has returned, bringing silence and a bitter wind. The just-past-full moon slips behind a cloud in the west and never returns. From under the house, the sound of gnawing.
January 9, 2025
Trees creak and clatter in the growing light. Somewhere nearby, freezing sap is trapped and the heartwood bursts, loud as a rifle shot.
January 7, 2025
Bitter cold with a wind. The happy sounds of juncos coming down to drink from the spring’s thin trickle. Overhead, a faint wash of pink.
January 2, 2025
Windy and cold, with snow clumped in every dip and divot. An icy creaking from the trees. The western ridge glows and fades as the sun climbs into the clouds.
December 23, 2024
Deep cold, with hoarfrost silvering every twig and dead weed. The sun clears the ridge and spreads glitter among the icicles. A white-breasted nuthatch begins to kvetch.
December 22, 2024
Very cold and still. Over by the springhouse, juncos are making their happy sounds. A mourning dove moans.