At mid-morning, a low, heavy cloud ceiling that muffles sound. The first snowflakes wander in, accompanied by a song sparrow’s jaunty tune.
snowflakes
March 2, 2016
Cold (-6C). The wind drives pin-pricks of snow against my cheek. I squint at the sun through bare oak branches. It’s good to be back.
November 20, 2015
Branches clack like arrhythmic castanets in the high wind. A few sunlit snowflakes hurtle past, refugees from who knows what distant cloud.
April 23, 2015
Scattered snowflakes. On the back slope, a gray tabby cat is stalking voles, head swiveling to follow each ripple of wind in the grass.
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 12, 2015
Another flash mob of crows—a knot, a clot. (No murder yet.) A sudden snow squall and my dark jeans and coat are studded with stars.
February 3, 2015
Birds flutter back and forth across the yard to drink the dark water of the spring. The frigid air glitters with scattered snowflakes.
January 30, 2015
A few small birds are among the sideways-flying snowflakes. From the tops of the pines, two blue jays issue their usual denunciations.
January 16, 2015
A raven croaks somewhere above the ridge. Snow fine as flour. A Brownian cloud of small birds scuds over the treetops: pine siskins.
January 9, 2015
Snow swirls past the porch like an old film reel dense with the blemishes of time. Juncos chitter. A downy woodpecker’s light, steady taps.
January 7, 2015
Snowflakes blowing past must’ve come from a cloud that’s already scudded over the horizon. Faint chirps from the depths of the cedar tree.
December 31, 2014
Cold and overcast. Snowflakes almost too light to fall wander like miniature spacecraft reconnoitering in advance of a full-scale invasion.
December 2, 2014
A few lost snowflakes floating this way and that. A hunter walks up the road, his safety-orange vest printed with the shapes of leaves.
November 14, 2014
A titmouse taps in the rain gutter, its absurd crest buffeted by the wind. Scattered snowflakes dart this way and that as if on a mad hunt.