A dusting of fresh graupel, and more flying past: like large grains of salt, or snowflakes which, tragically, are in no way unique.
snow
January 15, 2019
Wandering tracks of sparrows and juncos in the snow below the porch. Beyond that, bare patches pawed open by hungry deer in the night.
January 14, 2019
Low sun on snow—even the shadows glitter. I’m feeling creaky, like the labored wingbeats of a dove starting up from the water.
January 13, 2019
Woodpeckers big and small are tapping on trees without disturbing the snow on every branch. Hibernating insects will never hear the knock.
January 10, 2019
The top of a dying red maple has been blown down across my walk. The wind raises a zombie army of leaves to go staggering over the snow.
January 9, 2019
Snowflakes streaming past the house like commuters, the sun almost out, the meadow’s white fur from last night’s cold front almost all gone.
January 2, 2019
One mound of November’s snow has survived into 2019. I’m watching a brown creeper but hearing a nuthatch—and all the voices of the stream.
December 13, 2018
I’m reading about the haiku poet who helped lead the Rape of Nanjing. Snow melt begins to drip from the top roof: muffled artillery fire.
December 9, 2018
On the snow-covered log beside the stream, the baby’s-handprint tracks of raccoons. A wren above the water burbling in counterpoint.
December 7, 2018
The ground is once again white, and there’s a wind. A dry, brown oak leaf dropping from the sky rocks from side to side like a small boat.
December 6, 2018
Half a degree above freezing, but it’s enough to melt last night’s snow everywhere the weak sunlight reaches. Quiet but for the trains.
December 4, 2018
Flakes in the air. The weather’s turned cold in time to save the last, shrunken curls of snowbanks, marooned like sea creatures on a beach.
December 1, 2018
Sky heavy with weather. In the woods, more bare ground than snow. Brightness persists only in scarlet barberries and the fresh green moss.
November 29, 2018
Cloudy but bright. I notice many of the pits in the old snow, melted down by oak leaves, have acquired new snow and a second, upstairs leaf.