cold

December 14, 2010

Dave Bonta December 14, 2010

An impossible butterfly dances past the porch: a shred of oak leaf. The trees creak and groan in the bitter-cold wind.

January 29, 2010

Dave Bonta January 29, 2010

Cold dawn—a tree pops like a rifle. Nothing between here and the stars but the sunlight’s thickening mud. My windward cheek turns numb.

November 20, 2024
We’re in the clouds. They drum on the roofs and echo with bird calls. A dead walnut branch, scaley with lichen, lies in the road…
November 20, 2023
Crystal-clear and very still at dawn. A last meteor disappears into the spreading spill of light on the eastern horizon.
November 20, 2022
As cold as yesterday but with orange-bellied clouds and a wind. A tulip tree seed helicopters into the yard and rises up over the house.
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 20, 2020
Cold, but with eddies of warmer air as the sun rises through the trees. It’s clear except for three mare’s tails—remnants of dawn contrails.