Before dawn, nothing but wind and trains. In the crown of a birch, Venus burns so fiercely, even the fast-moving clouds can’t extinguish it.
wind
12/15/2010
I don seven layers of clothing to sunbathe on the porch. My chair has slid to the northeast end, its back to the prevailing wind.
12/14/2010
An impossible butterfly dances past the porch: a shred of oak leaf. The trees creak and groan in the bitter-cold wind.
12/8/2010
Sun! And clouds thinning to snow-gauze on their leeward sides. A junco tries to fly into the wind, turns sidewise, lands with a chirp.
12/7/2010
The hissing of the wind blends with the sighing of my furnace. I wonder how far away this latest drift was born. Is it Pittsbugh’s snow?
12/5/2010
That first snow still cloaks the frozen earth. When the wind dies, I can hear the 75 finches at my parents’ birdfeeder, a twittering bedlam.
11/17/2010
High winds stir the trees like surf, a dead branch crashes every few minutes, but the small birds still forage, twittering in the birches.
10/17/2010
One gusty day, and the forest is full of new sounds: here a squeak, there a moan, like an orchestra of broken instruments tuning up.
1/9/2010
The wind has erased all but three footprints of a deer trail across the yard. In winter, you don’t connect the dots—you supply the dots.
1/8/2010
A strong wind, and the branches let go of the snow they acquired overnight, big pieces sailing out and dissolving like boats made of salt.
1/6/2010
The wind was busy while I slept. Is this the same snow I swept off the porch yesterday? A nuthatch probes the cherry with its clinical bill.
12/29/2009
Wind roars on the ridgetop; dervishes of snow in the yard. A loud rending—some trunk or limb—and I hold my breath waiting for the crash.
12/3/2009
Trees rock and sway. The dead elm has parted with its largest limb, and the oblong scar glows a creamy yellow, like a well-aged cheese.
9/29/2009
Under a white sky, the trees rock and sway, showing the pale undersides of their leaves—a palms-up gesture of welcome or helplessness.