An hour before sunrise, the yard is flooded with moonlight for a few moments, till the rift in the clouds drifts on to uncover a sliver of dawn sky, the last few stars.
moon
Full moon over the ridge an hour before sunrise turns fuzzy as thin, high clouds move in, fading out instead of setting. A dog barks in the distance.
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.
Cold (20F/-7C) and clear. The half-moon is an ear cocked to the west, where sunrise spreads down the ridge like an orange rash.
The moon is still bright but the sky has begun to turn blue. Up on the ridge, something barks twice, then falls silent.
One last meteor leaves a faint streak in the dawn sky. That dark disc rising through the trees has a shining husk—the old moon.
Clear, cold (13F/-10C) and very quiet. Foraging deer have scraped a bare patch in the snow. A sliver of moon slips through the treetops.
Snowflakes floating down from a patchy sky, where the third-quarter moon appears and disappears. The distant fluting of geese.
5:20. Bleary-eyed smudge of an eclipsed moon above the western ridge. 6:20. Pink clouds turn orange. The first song sparrow.
Dawn. Low over the trees, the last sliver of moon like fangs of a snake trying to swallow a dark, glowing egg.
Lightning flickers on the horizon at dawn. The dull glow of the crescent moon’s darkened bulk reminds me that the earth also shines.
Dawn. The last katydid falls silent. The fourth-quarter moon, curled up like a dried fish, disappears into a cloud.
Harvest moon setting behind the western ridge, followed by a faint moon dog in the wash of cirrus.
A few minutes before sunrise. Goldfinch chatter. A half-slice of moon hangs in the east like an icon of wintry cool.