Just enough thinning of clouds for a classic, red-in-the-morning wash of mauve in the east, where quarry trucks are loud with their first loads.
sunrise
February 16, 2023
No sign of the sun after a lurid dawn—the forecasted rain has its P.R. down. I can smell it. I listen for the first drops through a torrent of birdsong.
February 15, 2023
High clouds yellow with sunrise appear to have some business off to the east. A downy woodpecker on a dead locust limb fires off a blast beat.
February 13, 2023
The western ridge turns barn-red with sunrise. As it fades to gold, down in the hollow a mob of crows starts up, jeering, denouncing.
February 3, 2023
-12C with a wind. Which one of those small pink clouds is responsible for these snowflakes? My oil furnace trembles under the house like a wounded animal.
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 24, 2023
Sunrise layers of yellow and blue, cloud and clear. High in a black birch, two chickadees feed and squabble.
January 20, 2023
Overcast with short-lived bright patches in the clouds. A cardinal sings a few notes at the time indicated for sunrise. Then it’s back to the sound of the wind.
January 18, 2023
Damp and not as cold. A squirrel loses a persistent follower in a treetop maze. The risen sun almost breaks through the clouds.
January 15, 2023
Cold (20F/-7C) and clear. The half-moon is an ear cocked to the west, where sunrise spreads down the ridge like an orange rash.
January 12, 2023
Fog prolongs the dawn well past sunrise. How long will squirrels keep scolding after a cat has slunk away? Ten minutes and counting.
January 11, 2023
Still air and a heavy frost. A pair of ravens fly side by side over the porch, one calling like a crow—falsetto—the other like a death rattle.
January 9, 2023
The ground is white again. Bright spots in the clouds that could be moon or dawn. The deep breathing of the pines.
January 8, 2023
Heavy gray sky. A screech owl’s descending quaver. And then it’s sunrise, according to my phone and the crows.