A cloud that started life as a contrail turns livid as a cut then slowly fades to white before dissolving. A white-throated sparrow repeatedly sings a single, interrogatory note.
white-throated sparrow
October 28, 2024
Red dawn spreading like a wine spill from a small patch of burgundy near the moon, which I watch with head held still to see it inch from twig to twig. A white-throated sparrow is the first to sing.
October 19, 2024
In the frosty stillness, I watch moonlight disappear into dawnlight. Half an hour before sunrise, an acorn falls with a thud and all the sparrows begin twittering.
October 18, 2024
Dawn light with sparrow song. The full moon of my insomnia still glows above the western ridge as blood dries on the mousetrap under the stairs.
October 11, 2024
Clear and still at sunrise, with a slightly harder light frost than yesterday. A crow yelling over the compost. A white-throated sparrow’s thin song.
December 21, 2023
The solstice dawns cold and overcast, with a small lens of clear sky on the eastern horizon. A thin, wavering song from the meadow: the first white-throated sparrow has woken up.
October 26, 2023
Sunrise: pink and orange in the sky as on the hillside. A white-breasted nuthatch punctuates a white-throated sparrow’s song.
October 24, 2023
Clear and cold with a heavy inversion layer: sparrow sounds blend with beeping quarry trucks. In the dim light, all the autumn colors look like blood.
October 16, 2023
Still no frost. A Carolina wren putt-putts at the woods’ edge. From the powerline, a white-throated sparrow’s plaintive “Oh sweet Canada…”
January 5, 2023
Fifteen minutes after sunrise, the cloud-lid lifts, and a bright seam appears above the horizon. A white-throated sparrow sings two notes and stops.
October 24, 2022
High, slow-moving reefs of cloud at sunrise. The white-throated sparrows in the meadow conclude their chittering and go their separate ways.
October 19, 2022
In the half-light of dawn, wet snow falls through the dimly glowing autumn leaves. A white-throated sparrow’s plaintive note.
April 10, 2022
Snowflakes dance wildly but all the daffodils can do is nod and sway. O sweet Canada, sings the sparrow.
December 9, 2021
Hard frost. As the sky reddens, the meadow comes alive with chirps and trills. A milkweed pod’s frozen spill of gossamer.