Rain tapping on the porch roof. Robin song echoes off the hillside. From down-hollow, the sound of a crow mob.
crows
March 1, 2022
The sky clears at about the same rate as caffeine clears my head—a transitory state, no doubt, and host to a mob of crows.
February 22, 2022
Gray with occasional showers. Distant crows. The face that I can’t unsee in the big red maple trunk with its expression of perpetual dismay.
February 14, 2022
Instead of the gloomy morning I was expecting, the sky’s clear and there’s a fresh inch of dry snow. The crows are still exclaiming over it.
January 24, 2022
Clear and still, with yesterday’s snow still clinging to the trees. Bergamot seedheads sport wizards’ caps. Crows yell about the sunrise.
January 23, 2022
A warmer morning, and all the birds are calling: Carolina wren, robin, crows, a flicker. Squirrels chase back and forth across the snow.
December 16, 2021
Clear at dawn. The extended gargle of a jake-braking truck. A crow flies silently overhead and returns a minute later with its call.
November 29, 2021
A scurf of fresh snow. Crows getting told off by a raven. Bright patches in the sky—which holds the sun?
November 5, 2021
A lone crow like a town crier repeating the same bit of news: how the rising sun, newly naked, is ablaze beneath the crowns of the oaks.
October 24, 2021
Four small patches of blue sky huddle together like blue sheep in a white woolen sky. The wingbeats of crows.
October 21, 2021
The last clear morning for a while. A red-tailed hawk flies through the bare birches, trailed by two outraged crows.
September 30, 2021
Clear and still. A double splat of black walnuts onto the driveway. At the top of an oak, a crow grooms itself with a soft clicking sound.
September 26, 2021
Cloudless blue like October come early. A crow. A raven’s croak. The field full of yellow goldenrod heads bowing toward the sun.
July 11, 2021
Absorbed in a book of poetry from Uruguay, I forget to notice anything except for the high-pitched, nasal cries of a fledgling crow.