Thaw. The snowpack has shrunk by about half, and the snowplowed banks that flank the road have opened their dark dirt hearts. The gray sky turns faintly pink as the wind picks up.
thaw
January thaw. A nuthatch finds a dead branch so resonant, its probing taps sound as loud as a woodpecker’s, and it flees to a quieter tree.
A downy woodpecker gleans breakfast from the dead cherry, chirping between taps. A mackerel sky. The smell of thawed earth.
43F at sunrise—it feels balmy. The trees rock back and forth under a cloudless sky, touching in ways they rarely do, clattering, groaning.
Day Six of the thaw, and the sound of running water dominates the pre-dawn darkness—still faintly illuminated by the threadbare snow.
Day 3 of the thaw. A month’s worth of apple cores are beginning to surface. Inside on my computer screen, via webcam, a black bear sleeps.