Overcast at dawn. A cold kiss—snowflakes in the air. When the sunrise comes, it’s only evident in the caws of crows.
sunrise
December 29, 2023
Mostly clear at sunrise, but clouds gather in the east before the sun tops the ridge. A pair of ravens go over with a new word: two syllables, starting hoarse and ending clear.
December 27, 2023
Thick fog and silence. A song sparrow pipes up just before sunrise. It gets darker again. A bluebird warbles as the rain resumes.
December 16, 2023
Cold and very quiet; I’m startled by a rumble from my own gut. The western ridge turns blood-red.
December 14, 2023
Waiting for the sun at -8C. It’s clear and quiet, except for a squirrel rummaging through frosted leaves, climbing up to a low limb and beginning to gnaw.
December 11, 2023
The western ridge is white with snow and more flakes spin down from thinning clouds, bellies turning orange against the blue. A crow kites overhead without flapping a wing.
December 10, 2023
Steady rain—a gloomy sunrise. The big dead maple next to the road has the palest bark, its faces gone blank as masks.
December 9, 2023
Red at dawn, and red again at sunrise for the last day of regular firearms deer season. Finally, at fifteen minutes past sunrise, a rifle booms. Then silence again.
December 2, 2023
Fog hides the sunrise, apart from a small opening on the ridgetop that fills with golden light. Then the gray curtain comes down again.
November 28, 2023
A scurf of snow on the ground. A few fat clouds, barely moving, turn orange. A lone crow in the treetops coos like a dove.
November 26, 2023
Another still, cold sunrise. I watch Venus creeping through the crown of a black locust, dwindling to a point that finally vanishes behind a flotilla of small clouds.
November 22, 2023
Wet and overcast at sunrise. The forest floor with its carpet of leaves almost glows for a minute or two before subsiding into ordinary brown.
November 19, 2023
Waiting for the sun as the western ridge turns from pink to orange to yellow. The plastic flamingo in my garden is furred with frost.
November 15, 2023
Cold and still at sunrise. The western ridge turns from barn-red to gold, like an autumn in reverse.