6:39 a.m. ( sunrise two minutes earlier than yesterday). 19 degrees, wind NNW 4 mph. Sky: pink tinge in the east and south, mostly clear elsewhere, a few clouds come and go, appearing and disappearing like a magic trick. Visibility nine miles . . . but the crown of Mount Ascutney, forty miles to the SSW, nowhere to be seen. Another inch of powder. Permanent streams: like yesterday and the day before, a bashful flow, buried under ice and multiple layers of snow, untracked and mum as marmalade. Wetlands: the epitome of winter, sunlight descends down the snowy evergreens and across the broken reeds, ignites the world with a cold, phosphorescent brightness. After the snow fell, coyote highway, midnight and beyond, lines of tracks head into and out of the marsh. Three crows fly north, a finely honed performance, scream like banshees, gleam like buffed obsidian. A fourth crow, flying sweep, follows an audible trail, much higher and without pretense, keeps all thoughts to himself. The alchemy of sunshine, neon black on blue. Pond: except for the bright light, everything looks like yesterday. Too slippery to walk. Dogs agree—a consensus.
Deep in the woods, something startles a grouse, which flushes unseen. Short, stubby wings shattering silence, hooking my attention. I spin around. See nothing but the bright snow and enduring trees and a cohort of chickadees, unmoved by the sudden departure of the grouse.
Hairy and downy woodpeckers tune-up. Pileated refrains. From within a bubble of blue jays honks, several white-breasted nuthatches call. Then, one sings, rattles off a series of notes.
Do birds consider me the way I consider them? What does he do in that wooden cave? Why does he whistle to me, three octaves too low? And, then smile. He may be a bubble off plumb, but he seems safe.
Limbs warming, wind picking up, snow sliding off evergreens, dozens of plumes rise and drift like puffs of smoke—each ephemeral as a heartbeat. Cold detonations, generously backlit by the sun. A chickadee whistles . . . and the morning unfurls, one puff, one note at a time.
As a former teacher of literature, I'm always delighted with your use of similes, and today is a gem.
"mum as marmalade"--having put up many containers of jelly, you're spot on with marmalade being "mum", since Jelly is clear as stained glass. [Side note: as a child I asked my mother why she bought marmalade, when none of us liked it; she said it lasted longer--a good point for someone who lived through rationing.]
"ephemeral as a heartbeat"--evanescent and ephemeral are such powerful words.
And my favorite metaphor today: "the alchemy of sunshine"--the sun really DOES transmute all it touches, from a distance of about 93,000,000 miles (8.5 light minutes). Awe comes in many forms, so that similes and metaphors are one of the ways to try to wrap our minds around mystery!
Thanks for warming the cockles of this English teacher's heart :-)