Drizzle in the wind even as the sky brightens. Small patches of blue appear and disappear. A yellow leaf spirals down into the yard.
wind
Crystal-clear for the first time since the trees leafed out. A breeze riffles through them—shifting curtains of light and shadow.
A dozen dead leaves circle the yard as the clouds’ bellies turn orange. A phoebe calls once, sotto voce, from a branch above the creek.
As above, so below—the ground the same white as the cloud ceiling. My thick hat excludes all but the sound of wind and birds and a train horn’s dissonant chord.
The ground is once again armored in white. Gusts of wind materialize like minor demons, treetops crashing together, dropping dead limbs.
The mid-morning sun in the forecast comes with a scrim of cloud, a breeze, and a raven on the ridgetop going bonk…bonk…bonk…
Overcast with bright openings and the white noise of wind, raising the dead leaves once again, making them fly.
Mid-morning, a lid of clouds slowly closes over the east. Caroling juncos fall silent. The wind picks up.
Wind and rain. In the gray-brown woods, two silent pileated woodpeckers flap from tree to tree, wings like a revelation in black and white.
Two pileated woodpeckers forage for breakfast, resolutely hammering as all the trees around their dead snags rock in the wind.
-12C with a wind. Which one of those small pink clouds is responsible for these snowflakes? My oil furnace trembles under the house like a wounded animal.
Gray sky raked by swaying treetops, the wind made visible by squadrons of snowflakes flying this way and that. The sound of rodent teeth.
Overcast with short-lived bright patches in the clouds. A cardinal sings a few notes at the time indicated for sunrise. Then it’s back to the sound of the wind.
In the pre-dawn darkness, something is barking up on the ridge—a disconsolate sound, nearly inaudible over the bitter wind.