Snow fell in the night, starting wet and finishing dry. Eighteen white caps top the dried heads of a bergamot stalk beside the porch.
snow
February 8, 2017
For hours last night the rain gutter thundered, so now once again the ground has been un-erased; snow remains only where the plow piled it.
February 7, 2017
Fog blurs the distinction between white ground and white sky. The distant drum roll of a pileated woodpecker followed by a patter of rain.
February 6, 2017
Chipmunks coming into heat chase each other over the bright, melting snow. I recall that their name comes from the Ojibwe for “headlong.”
February 4, 2017
Sunny and cold. A chipmunk’s awake, racing over the snow at the woods’ edge. Icicles fall from the roof and shatter with a festive tinkling.
February 3, 2017
A long log has slid down so that it rests like a seesaw on the top of the road bank. Tree shadows on the snow darken and grow faint again.
February 2, 2017
I watch two different squirrel entourages trailing females through the treetops until both are swallowed by a slow-moving snow squall.
February 1, 2017
A patch of dirt laid bare by the snow plow is aswirl with birds of all kinds. Even a robin appears, as if to assess the likelihood of worms.
January 31, 2017
Snowstorm. The porch, too, has been erased, except where some small bird’s meandering footprints have exposed the blood-colored floor.
January 30, 2017
Every cloud brings a scatter of snow. I gaze at the sun’s bright smudge, remembering a 38,000-year-old depiction of a cow stippled in stone.
January 28, 2017
A few, wandering flakes slowly build into a snow squall. From my parents’ back porch, the “towhee” call of a towhee that hasn’t gone south.
January 27, 2017
A skim of snow. A jay monitored by three fierce chickadees gives that red-tailed hawk scream—the one that signifies an eagle in the movies.
January 26, 2017
The last trace of snow has gone again. The sky is blank. What kind of January is this? Trees rock back and forth like traumatized refugees.
January 25, 2017
A clearing wind accompanied by Carolina wren song. At the woods’ edge, moss is already emerging from yesterday’s snow, greener than ever.