Clouds gravid with rain at sunrise. A wood thrush calls quietly. In the top of the tallest oak, a squirrel’s silhouette begins its descent.
rain
Overcast with a shimmer of light rain. A red-eyed vireo still calls at the woods’ edge. The thud of a black walnut onto a roof.
Crystal-clear, with leaves still wet from rain: I carry a chair up into the woods, luxuriate in the shimmering green and gold.
The sun finally struggles out by midmorning. Rain-dampened vegetation glistens like a salamander’s skin.
Drizzle thickening now and then into proper rain. The bracken in my yard glows in all the colors of decline and fall.
Rain and fog. A wood thrush sings three times and falls silent. A mourning dove goes on and on.
Cool, overcast, and humid. A breeze brings the smell of ozone and a hush of rain finishing its journey down from the trees.
Fifteen hours of off-and-on rain and everything looks greener. The big red maple that just finished dying sheds a chunk of rotten wood.
Another phantom shower, existing only on the weather app. A firefly wanders past, looking for a walnut leaf to spend the day under.
Heavily overcast; on the weather app, it’s raining. The sky lightens; on the weather app, bright sunshine. From Mom’s house, the measured tones of Morning Edition.
A few drips of rain. The squeaky begging of a fledgling at the woods’ edge. It breaks cover to hazard flying—a flurry of wingbeats.
Everything drips. A wood thrush chases a rival out of the woods and pauses in a spicebush for a look around.
Fog and mizzle. The usual doe and fawn graze in the springhouse meadow, their ears swivelling above the sodden vegetation.
One gray squirrel shadows another, nose to tail, down the gray driveway. Mid-morning thunder. A patter of rain.