Out before dawn with the first snow of the year landing cold kisses on my face. The ground glows pale in the darkness. When I get up to take a walk an hour later, my lap and coat shed their new layer of fur. | Continue reading
A red dawn, a redder sunrise, and a rain shower half an hour after that on the still-novel metal roof. I imagine a steel-pan drummer playing avant-garde calypso. | Continue reading
We’re in the clouds. They drum on the roofs and echo with bird calls. A dead walnut branch, scaley with lichen, lies in the road like a landed fish. | Continue reading
Sunrise reddens the western ridge from under a lid of cloud. Three white-throated sparrows squabble under the lilac, their chirps mingling with the distant cheeps of a truck going backwards. | Continue reading
Moonlight at dawn, only to cloud over by sunrise. A pileated woodpecker flies in a tight circle among the trees, as if lost, before launching himself out into the yard. | Continue reading
A slightly flat full moon in the west at dawn. A towhee calls from the dark edge of the woods. Freight trains labor up the valley. Just before full daylight, […] | Continue reading
Windy and gray. The only signs to distinguish the sunrise are a sudden outburst of crow calls in the distance and an upwelling of white-throated sparrow song. | Continue reading
Every morning should come with fog like this, and the leftovers of an all-night rain still dripping onto the porch roof, and bright lichen on dark bark, and chickadees. | Continue reading
Heavily overcast without a breath of wind—classic November weather. A small carnival of goldfinches moves through the treetops on squeaky wheels. | Continue reading
Clear, cold and still. Sunlight refracted in heavy frost glitters in all the colors of the rainbow. | Continue reading
An hour past sunrise, the sky is half blue. The two-year-old tulip tree inside its cage of fencing waves a last, yellow leaf. | Continue reading
A clearing wind at dawn, after some much-needed rain. A mourning dove sits placidly on a swaying branch, facing east. | Continue reading
In the stillness of dawn, a blood-red stain spreads through the clouds. The winter wren wakes before the Carolina wren for once, with only slightly less strident results. | Continue reading
One degree above freezing and very still. The sun’s slow climb through bare branches. The sound of gnawing rodent teeth in three directions. | Continue reading
Clear and cold. The red squirrel makes its usual racket while the gray squirrels leap silently through the treetops. The western ridge turns red. | Continue reading
Warm and breezy with bright holes in the clouds. The sprawling old lilac is well into its second spring, with a new crop of bright green leaves at all stages […] | Continue reading
Cloudy and unseasonably warm at sunrise. My head throbs from watching election returns. A small buck walks by below the house sporting a single spike of antler—a unicorn. | Continue reading
Up on the ridgetop to watch the sunrise, seven distinct layers of red in the smog over State College, itself hidden by another wooded ridge. A jay wakes up and […] | Continue reading
Another large oak has de-leafed, leaving more room for the overcast sky and its patchwork of light and dark. A screech owl trills one last time before full day. | Continue reading
The sun rises an hour earlier, heralded by the usual motley assortment of sparrows, wrens and corvids. The stratosphere breaks out into a rash of clouds. | Continue reading
A screech owl trilling just before sunrise sets the small birds off. The forsythia at the woods’ edge is once again yellow. The clouds turn red. | Continue reading
After rain in the small hours, a clearing wind at dawn. Winter wren song issues from a hole in the road bank—a quiet torrent. | Continue reading
A cloud that started life as a contrail turns livid as a cut then slowly fades to white before dissolving. A white-throated sparrow repeatedly sings a single, interrogatory note. | Continue reading
Dawn. High in a red oak crown an acorn lets go, tapping the branches on its way down like a blind man’s cane. | Continue reading
With no inversion layer, the early-morning traffic noise keeps its distance, like the worn-down moon cradling its heart of darkness. My rumbling stomach is the loudest thing. | Continue reading
Red dawn spreading like a wine spill from a small patch of burgundy near the moon, which I watch with head held still to see it inch from twig to […] | Continue reading
Sunday silence. The moon tangled in the treetops glimmers under a heavy eyelid. A train plays rooster for the dawn. | Continue reading
Clouds with yellow bellies and a clearing breeze. One oak leaf spirals down stem-first, hits the ground and bounces. | Continue reading
Clear and still, with frost in the yard lingering well into mid-morning. A lone crow with the sun on its wings disappears off to the east. | Continue reading
Clear at dawn. A pileated woodpecker rockets silently through the thinning forest canopy, and lands on the side of an oak like the angel of death for carpenter ants, elegant […] | Continue reading
Before dawn, a moon with toothmarks. The tick tock of an acorn dropped by a flying squirrel. | Continue reading
Orange light seeps down the western ridge. The half moon high overhead has been abandoned by its entourage of stars. A crow sits in a newly bare walnut tree, yelling. | Continue reading
Wind rustling through fallen leaves in the moonlight. When it stops, I can hear the careful footsteps of a deer. | Continue reading
Patches of frost in the yard. The old lilac at the woods’ edge has chosen this time to partially re-leaf after the summer’s drought: half-sized, bright green leaves against the […] | Continue reading
In the frosty stillness, I watch moonlight disappear into dawnlight. Half an hour before sunrise, an acorn falls with a thud and all the sparrows begin twittering. | Continue reading
Dawn light with sparrow song. The full moon of my insomnia still glows above the western ridge as blood dries on the mousetrap under the stairs. | Continue reading
Each dawn this time of year brings revelation: the sky behind the ridgetop trees emerging piecemeal like a puzzle. And between the sun and the clouds there’s a new, transitional […] | Continue reading
Overcast and gloomy. A single scarlet bough glows like a stoplight in the dark woods. The distant drumming of a pileated woodpecker. | Continue reading
Three deer are running back and forth through the woods: flashes of white tails, the thunder of hooves. A small black birch nearly bare of leaves is a-flutter with kinglets. | Continue reading
Out before dawn. The trees rock and talk in loud whispers. Orion appears through a hole in the clouds, dark armor glittering. | Continue reading
Cloudy at sunrise except just above the eastern horizon: the western ridge turns red, then slowly fades. Inversion makes the interstate sound much too close. | Continue reading
Partly cloudy and almost warm. The jays are having heated conferences overhead, with strangled cries and jeers. A few more leaves catch rides on a passing breeze. | Continue reading
Clear and still at sunrise, with a slightly harder light frost than yesterday. A crow yelling over the compost. A white-throated sparrow’s thin song. | Continue reading
Clear and cold, with a faint patch of frost on the barn roof. Winged tulip tree seeds litter the porch. A red-bellied woodpecker tuts from the top of a tall […] | Continue reading
Clear and still cold at mid-morning. Sunlight flashes through thinning leaves shuffled by the wind, the sun’s own color more a yell than a yellow. | Continue reading
Clear and cold. The red squirrel I’ve been hearing scold finally appears, racing up a bare walnut tree just as a deer hunter drags the first kill of the season […] | Continue reading
Breezy and cool at dawn. Migrants trade notes as they explore the forest edge: towhee, phoebe, thrush. A lost passenger jet comes roaring overhead. | Continue reading
Clear and cold, with more sky showing through the ridgetop trees. A raucous assembly of crows gives way to ravens—their resonant croaks. | Continue reading