6:46 a.m. (sunrise one minute earlier than yesterday). 27 degrees, wind WNW 3 mph. Sky: bruised and busy, visibility reduced, the valley hemmed in, rim to rim. Pixilated precipitation—looks like snow, feels like sleet, sounds like rain. Tiny, frozen balls, more a pellet than a flake, spraying and bouncing, oblong waves that rise with each step along the edge of my boots. Then, crash like the foamy Atlantic. Peppered beech leaves sound like rainsticks, dried to a crisp and thin as thought, motionless inside the green cathedral. Permanent streams: across the streaked marsh, evergreens press against the gray sky. Bobcat had wandered off the eastern flank, crossed the road, entered the alders and cattails, and then headed southwest, a solitary traveler passing by on the morning side of midnight. Cat tracks incite the dogs, faces stuffed in the snow. Pond: I walk the skating rink, a plowed figure 8, challenged not to fall—no sign of anything other than sleet-packed snow, slippery as seaweed.
Puddles and streaks of yellow birch seeds, dislodged by sleet, decorate the snow—dark cosmetic on the Earth's pale face. Seeds move when hit by pellets, subtlest of jumps. I stare at the business of birch seeds, anxious for the arrival of my first grandchild, due next month, to share the magic of mobile seeds, shaped of turkey feet.
Sunrise under wraps. Birds hushed and hidden, even chickadees keep to themselves. Suddenly, cheerfully, raven in pine, a husky squawk, trolling for company. Perches close to the trunk, shielded from the weather by warp and weave of limbs. A second raven, lured by the croaks, answers. Makes an appointment. Flies into the pine. Duets and Talmudic discussions, then suddenly gone, off into the jaws of the storm—a dark bird in a hurry on a nasty morning.