Fog. Again this morning a killdeer’s keening cry. Yard and field are almost snow-free now, and perhaps their flattened state appeals to him.
fog
2/23/2010
Thick fog prolongs the early-morning light for hours. The cardinal sings spring while a screech owl quavers over the luminous snow.
1/25/2010
12 hours of downpour and the stream’s a torrent, water clear from running off frozen ground. Small clouds rise like spirits from the snow.
1/17/2010
Fog. A distant chainsaw in one direction and in the other, rodent teeth. Amorous squirrels race back and forth over the white ground.
11/24/2009
Rain and fog with raven: silent, just above the treetops. White-throated sparrows and a freight train whistling at the same pitch.
11/19/2009
Drizzle turns into downpour and the fog retreats up the ridge. An hour later the rain eases and the fog rolls in again, erasing the trees.
10/3/2009
Thick fog. Silence punctuated by the muffled thuds of black walnuts landing on the lawn. The distant, mad cackle of a pileated woodpecker.
9/4/2009
Thin fog at dawn. From the woods’ edge, the familiar two-syllable call of a scarlet tanager sounds suddenly very much like goodbye.
8/20/2009
The fog reveals as much as it hides. Who knew the trees held so many spiderwebs? The birds are mostly quiet now; it’s cricket spring.
8/17/2009
Dawn fog lifts and pauses, so it’s clear to a height of ten feet, then white, then the crescent moon. A red-bellied woodpecker’s slow chant.
8/14/2009
Thin fog. Now that the phoebes have left, their shy cousins the pewees have come out of the woods, and herald each sunrise in a slow drawl.
8/1/2009
I watch a yellow black walnut leaf flutter to the ground. Autumn’s in the air. Fog persists most of the morning, lit up from above.
7/9/2009
5/28/2009
Pale bones of the dead elm, standing at the edge of the yard like an emissary from Lent amidst a Mardi Gras of green, reach into fog.