Impossible to distinguish the sound of the ridgetop wind from the rumble of freight trains below. The stars fade. A small high cloud turns pink.
dawn
February 12, 2024
Overcast and quiet an hour before dawn. From the spruce grove a half mile away, a barred owl’s single Who. The stench of diesel.
February 8, 2024
Dawn clouds stacked liked a ladder of blood. Chattering nuthatches. A dove’s breathy song sounds far from mournful.
February 7, 2024
Cold and still all the way to the stars, which are just beginning to fade. A barred owl calls once. The hesitant footfalls of a deer coming down to drink.
February 4, 2024
A song sparrow singing at first light as if it were March already. A quiet trickle from the spring. The moon gapes through the treetops, pale and hollowed out.
February 3, 2024
Cold and still. Just as the half-moon‘s light begins to fade, a screech owl trills from the pines, as if to prolong the night.
January 25, 2024
Fog blurs the difference between the white below and above, the trees reduced to gray wraiths as a Carolina wren sings for the break of day.
January 19, 2024
First light. White lines crisscross the dark edge of the woods: snow on trees. I stick my hand out to feel it falling, flakes as fine as dust melting into my palm.
January 14, 2024
Snow at first light—a silent mob of moving shadows, pecks on my cheek—then as dawn approaches, the slow differentiation of black and swirling white.
December 30, 2023
Overcast at dawn. A cold kiss—snowflakes in the air. When the sunrise comes, it’s only evident in the caws of crows.
December 23, 2023
Silhouetted against the dawn sky, a squirrel forages for birch seeds right where Venus was last seen, glimmering through thin clouds.
December 12, 2023
Waiting for dawn, I scan the holes in the clouds for meteors. The north side of the springhouse roof still wears a small blanket of snow—more like a thin sheet. Any small beast sleeping in the springhouse attic must be cold.
December 9, 2023
Red at dawn, and red again at sunrise for the last day of regular firearms deer season. Finally, at fifteen minutes past sunrise, a rifle booms. Then silence again.
December 8, 2023
The moon’s bright bowl full of darkness rises through the trees at dawn and vanishes into clouds. Two great-horned owls on the valley side of the mountain carry on duetting.