Dawn comes during a break in the rain, building from one lone cardinal to a phoebe singing contest to a mob of crows. From the pipe under the road, a winter wren’s soft cascade.
stream
4/5/2024
Dark and overcast at dawn. The creek has subsided—a hubbub rather than a roar. The cardinal who roosts in the red cedar next to the house calls once at 6:03 and goes back to sleep.
4/4/2024
Thick fog brightening in the east. Over the roar of the creek, a phoebe’s small, inexhaustible engine.
4/3/2024
In the pre-dawn darkness, nothing but the sounds of rain and water. A low rumbling comes from the hole in my yard that leads down to the stream just before it emerges into a spring.
4/2/2024
Rain. Every ditch runs with whitewater. Behind the bright forsythia, a gray wall of fog swallows the trees. Nevertheless, a wren.
3/13/2024
Thin clouds gone faintly pink. Under the endless robin song, a winter wren sings burbling accompaniment to the creek.
3/10/2024
Time Change Day! I for one welcome our chronological overlords, and I’m out at the new 6:30 just as the weather, too, is making a change, the creek roaring, snowflakes drifting down.
3/8/2024
After a bright sunrise, the clouds move in, one settling among the trees. The creek sounds more sober now, and here and there, the grass is greening up.
3/3/2024
The creek still sings yesterday morning’s rainy tune, but by 8:00 o’clock the uniform white sky has devolved into patches of dark and light.
2/27/2024
Swans before dawn, their moonlit cries drifting down from over the north end of the mountain. A quiet trickle from the stream. The scent of thawed earth.
2/4/2024
A song sparrow singing at first light as if it were March already. A quiet trickle from the spring. The moon gapes through the treetops, pale and hollowed out.
1/30/2024
Overcast and quiet except for the watery chorus. A chipmunk dashes across a patch of snow and disappears under the house.
1/27/2024
Meltwater roars in the creek. In the orange glow of sunrise, the cardinals emerge from the juniper tree, singing.
1/26/2024
Fog on snow. The hidden full moon’s false dawn obscures the real one. Distant traffic is drowned out by the sound of rushing water.