Yesterday’s melting has turned old footprints from pits into little hills. New tracks are muddy brown, fading out by the middle of the yard.
snow
March 7, 2015
A few degrees above freezing. Just inside the woods’ edge, three chipmunks in full mating frenzy race back and forth across the snow.
March 6, 2015
Very clear and quiet. The ground is a blaze of white, like a second sky in which the trees float, anchored only by their shadows.
March 5, 2015
It’s cold and gray, but a chipmunk has emerged from hibernation and sits on a log protruding above the snow without moving for half an hour.
March 4, 2015
Little sign left of last night’s ice storm, except beneath the black walnut trees in the yard: long, brown run-off stains on the snow.
March 2, 2015
An oak leaf wanders into the yard, resting in the lee of a snowdrift on its five curled tips before cart-wheeling off into the field.
March 1, 2015
The steady fall of snow—still somehow mesmerizing. That flux leading to so much sameness. Sun glimmering faintly like a lost coin.
February 27, 2015
The snowpack glitters, and the air too: flakes almost as small as dust-motes float back and forth in the sun. The rumbling of a bulldozer.
February 25, 2015
The sun going in and out of clouds—a chickadee’s shadow vanishes half-way across the yard. I’m struggling to remember the color green.
February 23, 2015
Bright and cold. Gusts of wind sweep the snow off branches—ghosts among the trees. A jet’s vestigial contrail briefly underlines the sun.
February 21, 2015
Something has left a line of black droppings on the porch beneath the railing. I watch them slowly disappear under a new blanket of snow.
February 19, 2015
Through driving snow, our neighbor is out plowing the road. The plow’s hydraulics whine like a sled dog. Tire chains scrabble at the ice.
February 18, 2015
Behind the sky’s thin skin, the sun is lurid as a bruise. More snow on the way. Six doves take off at once—the piccolo noise of their wings.
February 17, 2015
Warm sun on new snow. From behind the house, the high-pitched whistling of waxwings. The porch roof’s last, snaggletoothed icicle lets go.