Cold rain. Tiny leaves make pointillist patterns against the fog. Only the lilac is fully leafed out—big green alien still on its own clock.
fog
March 15, 2016
At first light, off in the fog, the weird, nasal calls of timberdoodles. One launches into the air with a whistling of wings.
September 23, 2015
Thick fog at mid-morning. The sudden cry of a Canada goose right above the trees, the sound of its wingbeats. The squirrels crying back.
September 6, 2015
Fog rising from from the valley breaks over the treetops like silent surf. The weak sun finds hints of scarlet under the crabapple leaves.
August 16, 2015
Ground fog in the corner of the meadow glowing faintly pink in the sunrise. A flicker flies out of the old den in the dead elm tree.
July 28, 2015
A bindweed flower is open in the garden—a white blunderbuss pointed, like the dog’s inquisitive snout, at the foggy woods.
July 14, 2015
Fog gives way to mid-morning haze. The neighbors’ rooster doesn’t so much crow as moan. I listen to cardinal song and imagine it’s February.
May 1, 2015
Buds have burst on the witch hazel, leaf-pairs clasped together as if in prayer. Dimly visible in the fog: a crowd of mayapple umbrellas.
April 10, 2015
Red-winged blackbirds calling in the fog. The springhouse phoebe appears to have found a mate. They take turns fluttering under the eaves.
April 9, 2015
In the thick fog, a wild turkey on the road looks like the small dinosaur that she is, stretching her neck to peck stones for her gizzard.
March 14, 2015
Rainy and cold. I am fascinated by the fog rising off the snow: how quickly it appears and disappears while barely seeming to move at all.
February 9, 2015
Thick fog. A steady drumming of snowmelt on the porch roof. A bluejay in the barberry, out of what looks like sheer boredom, begins to yell.
January 4, 2015
The woods are filled with fog and a roar of traffic from over the ridge. The north roof of the springhouse still wears a scruff of ice.
December 24, 2014
Fog. In the absence of the usual noise from quarry and factories, I can hear every grunt and groan of the trucks jake-braking on I-99.