Heavy frost blurs the difference between snow-free meadow and woods, where a white fur lingers. The distant stutter of a Jake-braking truck.
snow
A barred owl calls in the bright sun. Snow meltwater starts dripping onto the porch roof—a simple rhythm that grows increasingly complex.
It’s still. The birds seem restless. Then the snow starts: mixed with sleet at first, then in big clumps, giving the ground a mottled look.
The snow has vanished overnight. Now the Cooper’s hawk is camouflaged again, skimming the ground, slipping through the trees.
Birds through a curtain of meltwater, like fish at an aquarium, are inhabitants of a parallel world, their locomotion liquid and miraculous.
Two inches of dry snow have just fallen and the sky is still full of vague menace, like that space on a tax form intentionally left blank.
A fresh half-inch of snow, now beginning to blow off the trees. The stream is still loudly eulogizing Tuesday’s rain.
Sunlight alternates with wind-blown precipitation half-way between snow and rain. The chirps of a downy woodpecker working a tall locust.
Once more the snow has retreated to the shadiest spots. Ignoring a squirrel’s hawk alarm, a Carolina wren burbles with what sounds like joy.
A scurf of fresh snow on the porch. A few flakes linger in the air, darting back and forth as if on reconnaissance missions.
A love triangle of squirrels clambering through the lilac, shaking puffs of fresh snow from the limbs. The chattering call of a small hawk.
After rain in the night, a clearing wind at sunrise. The woods is now more brown than white. A chipmunk zips across a patch of snow.
Drizzle on snow—a phrase that, moved to the kitchen, sounds almost enticing. Christmas has come early for a crow excited about the compost.
Bleary, I squint at a smudge of sun, watch squirrels running for hundreds of yards through the woods, feet almost noiseless on the soft ice.