Heavy clouds except where the sun glimmers through. Snowflakes. The robin’s bright warble.
snowflakes
2/19/2022
A flash mob of snowflakes rushing this way and that. Over the sound of water, the wind: all hiss, no hush.
2/8/2022
Scattered snowflakes like free-range musical notation for scattered chirps—chickadee, nuthatch. A hint of sunrise fading from the clouds.
1/28/2022
The first flakes, fine as flour, from a dull gray sky: far edge of the predicted blizzard. A silent crow flies over. A woodpecker knocks.
1/20/2022
Bright sun with a few clouds. Snowflakes wander this way and that like terranauts among the trees.
12/22/2021
Patches of blue sky; occasional snowflakes. What appears to be a butterfly fluttering through the treetops must be a dead leaf.
12/19/2021
Full moon gone in, I feel snowflakes on my face, their almost clinical touch. The sound of a train. The springhouse roof turning white.
11/30/2021
Another day, another snow: fat flakes coming down just thickly enough to be mesmerizing, turning the ground blank again. A gun goes off.
11/26/2021
Snow on the ground and in the air. When the wind eddies around to the east, a great flock of shriveled leaves lifts off from the lilac.
11/19/2021
Flakes in the air. The lilac leaves hold on, faded and stiff. And with my brown clothes and dark red hat, I suddenly realize I match the oaks.
11/14/2021
A blank gray sky, this time of year, is the easiest kind to read: snow, it says, in a slowly accelerating tumble of pure punctuation.
2/20/2021
Large, compound snowflakes drifting this way and that. A titmouse suddenly begins darting after them, hovering and diving like a flycatcher.
1/31/2021
The advanced scouts for a promised snowstorm. A squirrel gallops across the porch roof and back, sounding like a very small, unshod horse.
1/29/2021
Another bitter cold morning. A few snowflakes wander back and forth as if lost. The resident naturalist picks her way down the icy trail.