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.
snow
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.
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.
The steady fall of snow—still somehow mesmerizing. That flux leading to so much sameness. Sun glimmering faintly like a lost coin.
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.
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.
Bright and cold. Gusts of wind sweep the snow off branches—ghosts among the trees. A jet’s vestigial contrail briefly underlines the sun.
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.
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.
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.
Warm sun on new snow. From behind the house, the high-pitched whistling of waxwings. The porch roof’s last, snaggletoothed icicle lets go.
Now that the wind has died, I can admire its work: the yard scoured like a salt flat, the stream turned into a canyon with dangerous curves.
From the valley, a wailing duet of fire sirens. Woodpeckers tap and listen, tap and listen, as the soft, light snow goes on falling.
Bright sun, and meltwater drips from the roof despite the cold. I think about microclimates—pits in the snow around dark goldenrod stalks.