Humid and still, with clouds trailing low into the treetops—a typical morning in the tropics. The scolding and begging sounds of birds with fledglings.
clouds
Heavily overcast; 88% humidity. I’m clapping out the lives of mosquitoes, one after another—too big and slow for their own good. A breeze springs up.
Overcast. Sunrise is when the crows wake up. A large brown moth tucks itself into the eaves.
Cool and quiet, with the sun half-dimmed by thin clouds. A series of loud wingbeats from the forest. A gurgle from my gut.
Overcast at sunrise. The jumping spider who lives under my chair comes topside for a brief scuttle about. A red-bellied woodpecker bangs on his morning drum.
Low clouds trailing drizzle settle into the trees, where a wood thrush and a wood pewee are calling. From the wet meadow, an indigo bunting’s bone-dry song.
Heavily overcast and humid. A hen turkey’s anxious call. The springhouse catbird slipping out of her stream of consciousness to mew.
Sunlight through the trees slowly growing sharper as high clouds thin out. A shadow-play of two silent crows. A falling petal.
Cool and nearly clear, save for a wash of high-altitude murk. The tall tulip tree at the woods’ edge is shedding petals, leaves waving like ravers in the slightest breeze.
Heavily overcast and cold. A redstart is calling from above the springhouse—a buoyant buzz—while a distant wood thrush makes me revisit my dreams.
Cool and increasingly cloudy as the sun clears the treetops—a bright spot in the gray. A rose-breasted grosbeak sings. Chipmunk metronomes go in and out of sync.
Under a white sky, the rambling old white lilac is beginning to bloom. Half an hour past sunrise, the first, tentative raindrops on the roof.
Waiting for the rising sun to emerge from the clouds, I read half a book. The sky is a crazy quilt, orange and gray and pale blue. The birds are re-visiting all their classic hits.
The sun climbs from clarity into murk. Feeling insufficiently caffeinated, I watch the tulip tree’s tall, green torch fade to chartreuse.