February 17

Deep cold, deep snow. The foot tall dogs smash along, crusted in their groove like the plow trains of Banff. I take the lead to spare the geriatric Corgi. This lasts until she shoulders her way past, unable to bear the tedium of my fastest pace for another mortal moment. Which is, after all, seven moments to her.

White birch branch carries

a foot of whiter snow—stark

as paper, this world.

January 31

 The sun shines in a million tiny mirrors in the snow. The hoof prints are full of shadow where deer criss-crossed the hill. Three white hawks with black wing-tips circle slowly in the pristine sky. Three does with ears outlined in sharp black bound away, disappearing among the deer-colored tree trunks.

Chickadees calling—

this territory is mine

in case spring should come. 

December 28

A squirrel dressed for the opera hangs by her back feet from the cord, daintily eating sunflower seeds from the birdfeeder tray. When she sits up, stylish scarf twined around her neck, the long fur ruffles in the wind. She has cleaned up the broken Christmas cookies and magnanimously thrown some to the chickens on holiday from the barn for a few hours.

Carolina wren

in a bare tree—belting out

his cinnamon song.

Administrative chaos!

Just found a post from late December that never made it out of the fog of tinsel.  Up next, and out of order!

January 7

Too cold to walk far: the dogs’ paws freeze after a few steps. They sit in the trail, pained, puzzled. Trees make sudden loud snaps like guns.

Below freezing day:

life reduced to tidal flow

of nose hairs—in, out.

January 1

New Year’s Day, bright dawn. Crows calling in the trees near the swamp; chickadees flitting and calling in the orchard. Waxwings drink from the ever-liquid frog pond. The seed catalogs have come. Things look good.

Corgis scent along

trails we have not mowed in years—

I stick to the path.

December 18

It’s been snowing for five days, off and on. This morning my daughter called us all to see the dawn—winter’s hot pink slash behind the eastern trees—but now gentle flakes fall on the orchard. Not the small, determined, I-will-bury-you-so-deep-it’ll-be-June-before-they-find-you kind, but the fluffy ones that stick to the apples still in the trees, a small tuft for each burble of dried goldenrod, a veil over the grasses, like another round of seeds from those brittle golden stalks.

The survivors of

rifle season sleep under

snowy apple trees.