Sunrise turns the western ridge red. A squirrel falls out of a walnut tree and lands with a thump in weeds white with the first frost.
frost
November 23, 2015
Bright and still; the meadow glitters with frost. Behind the house, a deer sniffs then licks a fallen pear and turns away.
November 9, 2015
Melted frost shining like dew on the lilac. A deer trots down the road and into the yard to graze, raising her head to keep an eye on me.
October 19, 2015
Last night’s heavy frost retreats to the shade. By 10:30, sparrows are bathing in the stream, shaking themselves dry in the sunlit dogwood.
April 12, 2015
A galaxy of sparkles in the yard where the sunlight hits a patch of frost. The fourth-quarter moon hangs low over the trees. A grouse drums.
February 24, 2015
-21C. With the inner door open, frost forms on the storm door in minutes. The sun through the trees is spiky as a Medieval implement of war.
December 22, 2014
Frost on the grass like mildew. An echoey rasping sound that can only be a squirrel chiseling at a black walnut shell inside a hollow tree.
November 18, 2014
Yesterday the wet ground glowed in subtle, late-autumn colors; now it’s blank white. Frost on the storm door—a map drawn with knives.
November 11, 2014
Sunlight glistens on the ground where pockets of frost have melted and slides across a length of spider silk drifting through the yard.
October 28, 2013
At the base of the hill, the meadow is white with frost. A small deer carries the white torch of its tail up into the sunlit woods.
October 21, 2013
Patches of frost in the yard. A yellow jacket from the underground nest in the garden lands on the shoulder of my sunlit coat.
December 20, 2012
Frost has dusted just the two rosettes of mullein leaves beside the driveway: enormous white flowers. A cottontail rabbit bounds past.
December 13, 2012
A heavy frost sparkles in the yard. A foot from my chair, the only four walnut-leaf nibs on the porch are clustered in the shape of a rune.
November 21, 2012
Melting hoarfrost drips like rain. I watch one glistening drop change from red to yellow to violet as the sun inches into the deep blue sky.