Under a monochrome cloud cover, all the earth tones of blossoming oaks and birches, catkins alive to the lightest brush of a breeze.
wind
A cooler sunrise this morning with wind from the north. A ruby-crowned kinglet warbles up and down the scale. A hen turkey picks her way through spring onions.
A cold wind rummaging through the forest, mixing up the sounds of crows and trains and sirens. The sun appears for a second or two at a time.
Cold, windy, and overcast. The ring of daffodils in my yard offers a bright yellow rebuke to the grayness. Drink your tea! says the towhee. I’m trying.
A freakishly warm wind seasoned with rain. A red squirrel’s scold-call launches the dawn chorus: phoebe, wren, cardinal, white-throated sparrow. A turkey gobbles.
Windy and cold. I sit in the sun all bundled up, listening to birdsong through two hats and a hood. My mother calls to tell me about a flock of turkeys.
Gray aftermath of a strormy night. Still no phoebe or field sparrow. An icy breeze.
Half an inch of wet snow has turned things white again, if not for long: the wind blows clumps of snow from the trees. The sun comes up.
Windy, cold and clear at dawn. A song sparrow pipes up from the depths of the lilac. The ridge turns red.
When the wind dies, I can hear the roaring of the creek. I sit in the dark, composing a limerick in my head.
Gray skies and a bitter wind. Snowflakes keep finding the open book in my lap; I sweep them off with a glove before they can vanish into the ample whitespace surrounding the text.
The winds that buffeted the house all night have mostly retreated to the ridgetop—a distant roar. A few, yellow-bellied clouds add their scattered flakes to the windblown snow drifting atop the ice. I hear my mother on her back porch yelling at the squirrels.
Bright sun belies the bitter wind. A tiny but perfect snowflake lands on the back of my hand, that watchword for familiarity gloved in the skin of a cow.
A dark sky at dawn with one bright gash. As it eases shut, an icy breeze springs up. The stream gurgles softly in its sleep.