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.
rain
Day slips in among torrents of rain. The woods are mangy with scattered patches of old snow. The gurgle of a wren.
After a night of snow and rain, trees rock and clatter under orange clouds. The roof drips. Scattered flakes swirl past.
Thick fog and silence. A song sparrow pipes up just before sunrise. It gets darker again. A bluebird warbles as the rain resumes.
Rain tapering into mist and drizzle. A squirrel finds a black walnut next to the road, swiftly de-husks it and carries it away. The sky brightens. A goldfinch lisps a single note.
Wind seasoned with drizzle in the pre-dawn darkness. Between gusts, the distant whine of tires. A tree limb cracks, but no crash.
Steady rain—a gloomy sunrise. The big dead maple next to the road has the palest bark, its faces gone blank as masks.
Steady rain. An hour past sunrise the sky brightens a little, and the trees in their green sleeves of lichen begin to glow.
It’s just two degrees above freezing, but after days of cold, I feel overdressed. Juncos twitter softly by the springhouse. Raindrops begin tapping on the porch roof.
Dawn. A rustle in the leaves as bits of ice and half-frozen raindrops begin falling from the sky. From the lilac, the ticking of a wren.
it starts raining just as I come out on the porch, completing the November trinity: cold, gray, and wet. Goldfinch chatter. The keening of truck tires on the interstate.
Dead stillness giving way to rain at dawn, in the glowing absence of the full moon.
Dark at sunrise, but only a sprinkle of rain. Up in the woods, a deer rustles through freshly fallen leaves, breakfasting on acorns.
Between dawn and sunrise, a small rainstorm’s pleasant susurration drowns out everything else. As it eases, a Carolina wren takes over, caroling in a minor key.