7:09 a.m. (sunrise one minute earlier than yesterday). 25 degrees, wind NNW
7 mph. Sky: gray, scalloped edge to edge spits snow, which floats like wood
ash. Permanent streams: distorted lyrics leak from cracks in the ice, a
high-pitched gurgle, the afterthought of flow. Wetlands: an amphitheater of
bent reeds and frigid air. In summer, a replica of the Everglades writ
small upon the landscape; in winter, an image of the tundra. Yesterday's
snow, which trimmed the evergreens, has mostly blown off or melted. West of
the marsh, pileated drums in privacy (again), a percussive message hitched
to the northwind. I listen. Dogs wait. Pond: a suspension of animation, a
holding pattern like the on-deck batter after the third out of an inning.
Red pines, living poles with crowns, rock in the wind.

Raven, voice spilling over Robinson Hill, a guttural outpour. Directly
overhead, wings barely moving. A colossal songbird slowly patrols the
domain. Two crows, much smaller, flapping vigorously (compared to raven),
hurl sharp-edge voices across the valley. Jay mimics a red-shouldered hawk
. . .  makes me look. Female pileated has not visited eviscerated maple in
two days. Lonesome dove in ash waits for driveway grit. Simultaneously,
from opposite ends of the front yard, a red-breasted and white-breasted
nuthatch call, a stereophonic *yenk *and *ink*.

Chickadees being chickadees, full of urgency, flash by like static
electricity. On silent wings, voices under wraps. I'm waiting for a cold
front project to fall tonight like an anvil out of the north. Arctic air is
destined to orchestrate the weather for the next three days. But there will
be sunshine, sumptuous sunshine, caramelized winter sunlight flooding a
quasi-Siberian landscape . . . and my porch chair faces south.