The rain stops and the thrush singing at the woods’ edge is joined by warblers, flycatchers, pewee, thrasher, a hummingbird’s mad courtship flight…
rain
May 7, 2022
After 24 hours of rain, water streams from the mountain’s every pore. The daffodils’ last trumpet points toward the forest.
May 6, 2022
White lilac blooming in the rain. A hummingbird buzzes my propped-up boots, his crimson gorget the brightest thing in the hollow.
May 1, 2022
After insomnia, watching the rain come in and whatever brightness the morning might’ve had dwindling to just rose-breasted grosbeak song.
April 23, 2022
A 30-second rain. I count nine shades of green, all circled by a cardinal in his flame-colored cap. The daffodils once again stand erect.
April 16, 2022
Rainy, breezy and intermittently bright. The zigzag flight of a phoebe finding breakfast above the daffodils.
April 12, 2022
Warm rain. Phoebe and robin drown out the night chant of peepers. All the daffodils’ cups have turned bottoms-up.
April 7, 2022
Dark and rainy at sunrise; ridgetop lost in fog. Down in the boggy corner of the meadow, one spring peeper is still calling.
April 6, 2022
The rain that woke me in the night with its drumming dwindles to mizzle. Swelling buds and arboreal lichens glow in the gray-brown woods.
March 31, 2022
April showers a day early. The raspy calls of a wild turkey leading five companions out of the woods and off down the road.
March 23, 2022
Ten-thirty and the promised rain finally begins to whisper in the dry leaves—a mountain’s worth of hush drowning out all distant engines.
March 17, 2022
Rain tapping on the porch roof. Robin song echoes off the hillside. From down-hollow, the sound of a crow mob.
March 7, 2022
Cloudy and warm. A Coopers’s hawk darts through the treetops. From the barnyard, a phoebe’s enthusiastic chant. Raindrops.
March 6, 2022
Robin singing in the rain. It could be April but for the lingering patches of snow and the lack of a blush on the red maples.