Steady rain through the intense green of new leaves, softened by fog. A gray squirrel sits hunched over an acorn under the awning of its tail.
rain
April 28, 2023
Gray skies at sunrise beginning to tap with fingers of rain on this leaf and that—their first real shower. The avian chorus gains a soft percussion.
April 18, 2023
A cold and rainy dawn. The thermometer’s red pointer crosses the Centigrade zero—a null set. I say an atheist’s prayer for all the new leaves.
April 1, 2023
Rain and fog linger from a pre-dawn thunderstorm as the sky brightens. The nasal calls of woodcocks mingle with a torrent of robin song.
March 28, 2023
Rain easing off by mid-morning. The sun comes half-way out in the mirrors of raindrops dangling from branches, the forest like a pop-up gallery of miniature suns.
March 25, 2023
A brief lull in the rain at dawn, darkness full of the sound of rushing water and the dim shapes of the first daffodils, face-down in the dead grass.
March 23, 2023
Fog and scattered showers. The last few woodcock peents overlap with phoebes—two of them already, trying to out-sing each other.
March 17, 2023
In the half-light of dawn, something approaches, rustling in the dry leaves: rain. A few minutes later, the first phoebe begins his time-worn chant.
February 28, 2023
Rain and fog and the ground white with slush. I try to remember the last time I saw a rabbit.
February 21, 2023
Interval of sun on a rainy morning—the forest shines and steams. The distant yammering of a pileated. The interstate’s whine.
February 17, 2023
Wind and rain. In the gray-brown woods, two silent pileated woodpeckers flap from tree to tree, wings like a revelation in black and white.
February 16, 2023
No sign of the sun after a lurid dawn—the forecasted rain has its P.R. down. I can smell it. I listen for the first drops through a torrent of birdsong.
January 19, 2023
Steady, hard rain blurring the transition from night to day. How much silence there’d be if it were snow. How much more light.
January 17, 2023
Cold rain. The last scrap of December’s snow in the yard has shrunk to the size of a handkerchief. A back-and-forth between a titmouse and a chickadee.