Foggy and still, save for the occasional crash-down of a black walnut. The dog I’m sitting noses through the long grass, inhaling deeply.
dogs
A pair of phoebes flutter under the porch eaves, see me and the dog and retreat to a nearby branch. The first daffodils nod in the breeze.
The sun half-emerges from the clouds, like a chick too weak to break the shell. A small woman walks up the road, led by a large brown dog.
A cicada lies on its back on the porch, legs churning the air. I turn it over and the dog gives it a good, close reading with her nose.
A bindweed flower is open in the garden—a white blunderbuss pointed, like the dog’s inquisitive snout, at the foggy woods.
The dark green wall of the woods begins to vibrate—a shimmer of mizzle. The dog’s muzzle rotates, nose twitching. A cedar waxwing’s whistle.
Red-eyed vireo, common yellowthroat, indigo bunting: the primary colors of this morning’s diminished chorus. The dog twitches in her sleep.
Overcast and cool. The dog suddenly rises from her lethargy to dive off the porch and chase a groundhog back under the house.
The sun’s so bright, I don’t see the large black bear in the shadows at the woods’ edge until the dog points him out with a quivering nose.
After verifying that the latest vehicle to drive up does not contain her people, the old dog lies down, resignation written in every muscle.
Cloudy and cold. The weeds below the porch tremble where a chipmunk forages for seeds. The dog wanders into the garden to graze on grass.
Birdsong amid the rain. My brother’s ailing dog joins me on the porch, lying down with a sigh on the squirrel’s wet footprints.
A walnut leaflet falling into the yard rotates on its axis like a yellow spoke in search of a wheel. The brown dog lies panting in the sun.
Sound, like the rest of the weather, is out of the east: plow trucks, slow-moving trains, a dog barking on and on at the falling snow.