A half-inch of wet snow blew in so fast, it’s plastered to the sides of trees in lumps. From up on the ridge, the white noise of the wind.
wind
I find my chair where the wind left it at the far end of the porch with a cracked back. Dried cattail leaves flap like banners for the dead.
The snow squall stops just before I come out all bundled up and squinting at the sun, the porch two inches deep in windblown snow.
Snowflakes in the air give shape to the wind. I sneeze, and a pileated woodpecker emerges from the far side of an oak and flies off.
The icy trees have been dusted with snow, which still sticks in the wind when they make a sound like the dry grinding of snails’ teeth.
Fast-moving clouds make the illumination of the hillside as sudden and surprising as a magician’s trick. Fallen leaves turn over one by one.
My chair has moved to the far end of the porch, away from the wind. Feral herds of leaves crab-walk and cartwheel across the forest floor.
After a windy night, the whole horizon is visible beyond the trees. I watch one of the last oak leaves float down, rocking, taking its time.
Windy. A blackbird sings atop the neighbors’ aerial—his sharp outline against the sky. I watch a dandelion seed head for signs of flight.
Bright and cold. The wind sounds different from the last time it blew this hard, more hush and rustle—tiny new leaves’ ambitious whispers.
The dead are restless, through no fault of their own: last year’s leaves shuffled about by the wind. But the sun is strong. A phoebe calls.
Wind turns the pages of my notebook. The sun is bright, and I’m feeling happy for the small woodpecker who’s found a very loud branch.
For every red-bellied woodpecker trill, the white-breasted nuthatch has a response, low and nasal. A cold wind on my freshly barbered neck.
Overcast and cold. One by one the birds fly down to the stream, hop around, drink, fly up, and sing. Snowflakes blow past. A tree groans.