My surprise at a rainy morning is only exceeded by my surprise at having nearly slept through it, a gauzy drizzle just beginning to shine.
rain
The soft noise of steady rain; birdcalls sound half-submerged. I watch wisps of cloud drift through the yard.
The rains continue. The last peony blossom collapsed in the night, and the last purple iris has opened. Where mowed grass had died, there’s a blush of green.
Rain! That unfamiliar whisper rising to the level of a murmur. And a Carolina wren rushing about, making sure the world knows.
A slight sheen on the leaves at sunrise—what passes for rain these days must’ve fallen. The faintest smell of soil. An ovenbird’s endless lesson.
Overcast with a few drops of rain among the bird calls. A hummingbird hovers over a peony bud and flicks it with his tongue.
“Light rain” turns out to mean a shimmer of mizzle. The forest belongs once again to the preacher bird—red-eyed vireo—and the ovenbird chanting teacher teacher teacher.
For the third morning in a row, the thermometer hovers just above freezing as drizzle falls. Woodpeckers are already at work, beating their heads against trees.
A hair above freezing with rain tapering off. Two skinny deer, still in their gray-brown winter pelts, pick their way through the sodden vegetation.
Cold and half-clear for a red sunrise. The stream is still quiet—more raininess than actual rain. From off in the distance, a wood thrush’s ethereal trill.
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.
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.
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.
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.