Wood thrush, when you go back to Honduras, don’t just forage in the campo. Sing like you do here. Let them know how we mourn.
The pasture rose in front of my wall bears two white blossoms: bindweed raising its flared trumpets to the white sky. The smell of rain.
Bright sunshine after a night of thunderstorms. Four deer—two does and two fawns—run through the steaming woods.
Beside the springhouse, the twittering zoom of a hummingbird’s courtship dive: from sunlight into cattail shadows and back. Tanager song.
Soft applause from the road bank: a doe’s ears flapping as she shakes her head to chase away the flies.
A hummingbird grooms itself in the middle of a downpour while a phoebe plucks insects from the side of the dead elm, hovering in place.
Another dark morning. The wood pewee makes a rare visit to the edge of the yard, sings one, sad note, and snaps a brown moth out of the air.
The black-robed cowbird at the top of the dead elm burbles authoritatively, like the Grand Ayatollah of the yard taking credit for the rain.