Coyotes yipping up on the ridge before dawn. I try to guess the weather based a jet’s contrail—not too long—in the faint light of a crescent moon.
jet
Wednesday January 26, 2022
Half a moon slowly floating to the top of the tall tulip poplar. The lights of a jet with its roar a quarter of the sky behind.
Thursday October 28, 2021
Mercury rises just as the stars begin to fade. A jet flies under it. A lone goose flies over it. I look away and lose it in the dawn sky.
Friday November 20, 2020
Cold, but with eddies of warmer air as the sun rises through the trees. It’s clear except for three mare’s tails—remnants of dawn contrails.
Wednesday June 10, 2020
Humidity thick as wool. Above the buzz of hummingbird dogfights, a distant roar of military jets, hopefully just on training runs.
Wednesday June 10, 2020
Humidity thick as wool. Above the buzz of hummingbird dogfights, a distant roar of military jets, hopefully just on training runs.
Monday April 06, 2020
Two faded contrails in an otherwise clear sky. A cardinal sings his spring song, which bears a very strong resemblance to his winter song.
Tuesday March 17, 2020
In the fog and mizzle, swelling yellow-green lilac buds are the brightest thing. A single jet goes over in all the time I sit outside.
Sunday March 15, 2020
Bright sun. The damp ground glistens like a salamander. A jet goes over—the first I’ve heard in a while.
Friday February 21, 2020
A jet drags a vestigial contrail through the treetops, its roar far behind in the great blue bell which, by cliché, this clarity resembles.
Sunday January 12, 2020
A yellow gash appears in the clouds to the east and heals up again. The cardinal attacks his reflection. Military jets howl over, unseen.
Thursday December 26, 2019
A white-breasted nuthatch is barely audible over the whine of tires from the interstate. Two jet contrails form an X just above the sun.
Wednesday April 24, 2019
The fluttery way a Cooper’s hawk flies, skimming the treetops. Later, a jet goes the same way, its contrail just the briefest I and I.
Wednesday December 19, 2018
A gray squirrel runs along the gray road bearing a freshly dug-up walnut. High in the blue, a jet’s contrail is short enough to be a tail.