rose bush

Hot and humid. A silver-spotted skipper draws my eye to a bindweed trumpet, its silent hosannas seemingly aimed at the ancient rose bush.

On this date

January 20, 2021

Just after sunrise, the side of the ridge where fresh snow is sheltered from the wind turns pink, until the clouds close in with their flaming bellies. …

January 20, 2020

Clear and bitter cold (-11°C) but also fabulous—the icy snow covered with glitter where the sun stripes it, blazing through the trees. …

January 20, 2019

Storm past, the temperature is plunging, just as they predicted. The new icicles aren't even done dripping. They sway in the bitter wind. …

January 20, 2018

Just above freezing but it feels like a day at the beach—sun on white sand, a steady breeze, the surf-like hiss of pines, a jay for a gull. …

January 20, 2017

Blue jays jeering in the steady rain. In January. One more thing that doesn't feel right on a day when the world is out of joint. …

January 20, 2015

Two degrees below freezing, and the sky an almost uniform white except for a wrinkling in the east, like the brow of a corpse. Two crows. …

January 20, 2014

Brown patches in the yard where deer have pawed the snow aside to eat myrtle. An oak leaf curled like a stillborn spirals down from the sky. …

January 20, 2013

The sound of the wind up on the ridge mingles with the sound of trains in the valley until it's almost impossible to tell them apart. …

January 20, 2012

Cold—the porch floorboards pop under my feet. Real snow at last! The rising sun stretches two faint fingers across the driveway. …

January 20, 2011

Juncos hop on the icy snow between the cattails where a rabbit disappeared fifteen minutes earlier, taking the darkness with it. …

January 20, 2010

Cold and clear at sunrise. Two ravens following the ridge croak in unison, their wings almost touching. A squirrel descends the springhouse. …

January 20, 2009

Clear and cold at dawn, with a crescent moon tangled in the treetops. A tiny white prayer flag flutters from a branch: some vacant cocoon. …

January 20, 2008

Very cold. The woods seem unusually lifeless, and there's a new creaking sound with every breeze. After a while, I realize: no squirrels. …

The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow