Glimpses of a large, dark animal running way off through the woods, its footsteps inaudible over the wind. Great flocks of leaves.
wind
High winds after a soaking rain. The fallen walnuts in the driveway have all turned black, soggy hulls sagging like bodies in a bog.
Cloudy and cold. Gusts of wind try on bespoke garments of yellow leaves. The hornets are still flying, tough as the nails in their abdomens.
Cold and overcast, and the stream still in spate. Some bird wheezes in the treetops like a small bellows or a cheerleader for the wind.
Bright sun, bitter wind. With the snow almost gone, the neighbors’ chickens must be out of their coop: the rooster crows and crows.
Bitter cold with a wind. I sit with feet propped up as usual while snowflakes needle my cheek and pile up behind the ridges in my jeans.
Bitter wind. A small privet bush bends under the weight of six juncos, then two titmice, then three waxwings, each feasting on its berries.
Bright and windy. Leaves skitter like crabs across the forest floor. I track an unseen hawk’s passage by the squirrel alarms it sets off.
Filmy-winged gnats are blown past the porch, pale as snowflakes in the strong sun. Overhead, the fierce cries of ravens playing in the wind.
High winds and a skim of snow like mildew on the ground. Trees overcome their aversion to touch, twist in a hambone dance of sapless limbs.
Another too-warm morning: late April without the warblers. Three dried oak leaves launched into flight by the wind circle like doomed hawks.
Bitter blasts of wind, lightly seasoned with snow. One of the trees at the woods’ edge has acquired a loud creak, but I can’t tell which.
A dusting of snow that fell while I was taking a shower has vanished again. Fast-moving clouds. On the wind, a train horn’s skewed chord.
The last trace of snow has gone again. The sky is blank. What kind of January is this? Trees rock back and forth like traumatized refugees.