The porch is plastered with fresh snow; more flakes fly past without stopping. A Carolina wren holds forth from the heart of a barberry.
snow
March 13, 2023
A fresh inch of wet snow, clinging to every twig—the forest refoliated in white. But already the roof has begun to drip.
March 11, 2023
As above, so below—the ground the same white as the cloud ceiling. My thick hat excludes all but the sound of wind and birds and a train horn’s dissonant chord.
March 10, 2023
Flurries in lieu of a sunrise; the ground is already white again. A faint, yellow-green wash on the rambling old lilac—buds are beginning to swell.
March 7, 2023
It’s snowing, fine flakes turning fat and slow—but so many of them, it’s mesmerizing to watch. After a while I look down: I too have been buried.
March 4, 2023
The ground is once again armored in white. Gusts of wind materialize like minor demons, treetops crashing together, dropping dead limbs.
February 28, 2023
Rain and fog and the ground white with slush. I try to remember the last time I saw a rabbit.
February 23, 2023
Mist rises from yesterday’s half inch of icy snow. A robin briefly joins the dawn chorus. The front-garden chipmunk returns from the woods with bulging cheeks.
January 31, 2023
A skim of snow overnight; a front has blown in and the birds are so much quieter. But a cold, gray morning is fine for gray squirrel romance: a pair ascend a young tulip tree together, touching often, and descend the adjacent walnut tree, nose to tail.
January 30, 2023
The snowpack is holey again. A sunrise sky is visible through the trees on the ridgetop for just a few minutes until the fog descends.
January 28, 2023
Mid morning, and the strong sunlight reveals in every shadow-casting hummock how snugly the ground’s coat of snow has come to fit.
January 27, 2023
Snow squall. A squirrel with two pursuers ascends a birch and turns on them, chasing again and again as the snow stops and clouds turn yellow.
January 26, 2023
Gray sky raked by swaying treetops, the wind made visible by squadrons of snowflakes flying this way and that. The sound of rodent teeth.
January 25, 2023
My phone insists it’s snowing, but the clouds hold their fire. The ground is nearly bare again; it could use a fresh coat. The creek has subsided to a quiet soliloquy.