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.
cold
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.
Trees creak and clatter in the growing light. Somewhere nearby, freezing sap is trapped and the heartwood bursts, loud as a rifle shot.
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.
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.
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.
Very cold and still. Over by the springhouse, juncos are making their happy sounds. A mourning dove moans.
Bitter cold this solstice morning, with the half moon moving in and out of clouds—the trees with their shadows, and then just shadow.
Bitter cold. A few small clouds turn brick-red. When the wind drops, there’s a staccato burst of pileated woodpecker alarm, answered only by a nuthatch.
Bitter cold and still at dawn, as the first silouette of a squirrel emerges from its nest of sticks and leaves high in the limbs of the big tulip and descends the tree, claws ticking against the bark. The clouds redden. A distant rifle booms.
The coldest morning since May, with an inversion layer bringing sound from the east—the slightly quieter direction. The Carolina wren duets with beeping quarry trucks.
Long johns on the first of June! 41F/5C. And the sun already in the treetops with the goldfinches.
Cold and crystal-clear. Sound is out of the east, where the quarry machines grind, giving the rising sun an industrial soundtrack.
Unseasonably cool. When the sun comes out, I can see that the breeze is freighted with bits of down and other plant parts—all the detritus of blooms and booms.