Rain and robin song. The sky darkens. The black birches look dapper in their gray-green suits of lichen.
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.
An hour past sunrise, bright spots begin appearing in the clouds. A lull in the birdsong. I notice the old lilac’s haze of green buds.
Thick fog that lasts for hours. Sunrise must’ve been that big flock of red-winged blackbirds and grackles crackling and creaking like old doors.
Dripping at dawn has thickened into steady rain by the time I get out of the shower. The robins, cardinals, woodpeckers and wrens seem barely to have noticed. It’s spring.
Another flat-white sunrise, today with the death scream of a rabbit. Crows, woodpeckers. The Carolina wren with his list of demands.
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.
Rain clouds have settled in among the trees with their bodies like smoke. Wood frogs and forest salamanders must be stirring in their death-like sleep.
At the end of a tunnel of shining twigs, the rising sun. A red-bellied woodpecker whinnies from the top of a locust tree. The furnace under my house rumbles to life.
Leap Day. The trees sway and clatter; winter is back. A small cloud turns pink.
Fog full of birdsong. I look up from the page to a rumble of thunder that makes the windows shake.
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.
Mid-morning with the sun full in my face, listening to the roof drip onto the roof. A chickadee sings his spring song, and a little later, so does the song sparrow.
Red dawn with a moon like a searchlight sinking into the powerline cut. The cardinal debuts a new call with what sounds like a glottal stop in the middle: chee-er, chee-er.