Sunlight through the trees slowly growing sharper as high clouds thin out. A shadow-play of two silent crows. A falling petal.
American crow
Dawn comes during a break in the rain, building from one lone cardinal to a phoebe singing contest to a mob of crows. From the pipe under the road, a winter wren’s soft cascade.
Red sunrise. To the south, the moon has gone flat on one side so it resembles a giant ear for the first crow to yell into when it created the world. The chanting phoebe clearly has no inkling.
Very cold and still. The clear sky at dawn has gone white. Crows call to crows. The floorboards shiver when my furnace kicks on.
Sunrise. The resonant drum of a pileated woodpecker. A lone crow hops from perch to perch yelling Hey! Hey!
Overcast at dawn. A cold kiss—snowflakes in the air. When the sunrise comes, it’s only evident in the caws of crows.
One degree above freezing as the tall pines fill with sun. Two crows emerge from the woods, yelling about some old deer guts that must be just thawed enough for breakfast.
The western ridge is white with snow and more flakes spin down from thinning clouds, bellies turning orange against the blue. A crow kites overhead without flapping a wing.
A mottled gray sky all the way to the horizon, not brightening even for the sunrise, let alone for the crows with their many complaints or the red-bellied woodpecker jeering from the top of a black locust.
An aging contrail stretches toward a sun half-hidden by cloud—fuzzy point at the end of an exclamation mark. Three crows take their argument elsewhere. The furnace under the house shivers to life.
A scurf of snow on the ground. A few fat clouds, barely moving, turn orange. A lone crow in the treetops coos like a dove.
Cold and still for the opening day of rifle season. Distant booms set the crows off. The sun is a bright smudge in a sky more white than blue.
A dozen geese come honking over the house, interrupting three crows sharing their excitement over a venison gut pile up in the woods.
A flat white sky crossed by a crow. Woods’-edge chipmunks in a chipping contest. The color.