Snow mixed with sleet. The feral balloons have wrapped themselves more tightly around their tree—a classic trade of freedom for security.
snow
March 27, 2019
The snowbank has shrunk to the size of a dog curled up on the dead grass. A tom turkey lets loose with his lust-gargle, his aggressive ache.
March 23, 2019
Deep blue sky. The distant rumble of a freight train heading west. The one remaining snowbank in the yard looks permanent as marble.
March 17, 2019
Clear and cool. Snow is mostly gone from the hillside, but the newly uncovered leaf duff is still damp and flattened, shining in the sun.
March 10, 2019
Crows call through the fog. I open my book to a haiku about crows calling through fog. Having melted a bit, the snow is again a blank page.
March 4, 2019
Snow blowing off the trees mingles with fresh flakes. Cloud shadow subsumes tree shadows like a malnourished rabbit reabsorbing her young.
March 3, 2019
Sky and ground both flat white. A squirrel missing a quarter of her tail is fossicking through the snow, ignored by a high-speed chipmunk.
March 2, 2019
Bird tracks in the snow next to the house like meandering lines of cuneiform verse, breaking off at odd points where something took flight.
March 1, 2019
Something has been ripping into the old hornet’s nest on the porch ceiling: pieces of its gray paper litter the fresh snow. A wren flies in.
February 24, 2019
Late morning and the rain stops, the fog lifts to reveal the same snow-clad mountain as before. The distant sound of an engine being revved.
February 17, 2019
Today the icy snowpack can just support my weight. Crows down at the end of the field remind me of Twitter: two’s company, three’s a mob.
February 16, 2019
Deep blue sky. A small cloud forms right where I’m gazing. In my garden, a rock has melted the snow around it as if it’s alive.
February 15, 2019
Drip and chitter: the snow is melting, and up at the other house, the birds must be finding seeds that had been buried beneath the feeders.
February 11, 2019
Blinking the sleep from my eyes, I watch a chipmunk awoken from hibernation racing from covert to covert through the inch-deep snow.