A rustling in the fallen leaves turns out to be the briefest of showers. The sky brightens. I practice looking at trees as if for the first time.
rain
November 11, 2020
Dark and wet. Puddles merge and flow on the driveway, rain stippling them like a mad monk writing O, O, O in invisible ink.
November 1, 2020
The tulip tree next to the springhouse is nearly bare, its last few leaves waving like four-fingered cartoon hands as the sky darkens to rain.
October 30, 2020
Five minutes after I check the weather app to verify it’s going to stay cloudy, the sun comes out. The damp forest glistens like a salamander.
October 29, 2020
Pouring rain—that thunderous arrhythmic percussion on the roof. The muted red and gold of the oaks give the forest a faint glow.
October 26, 2020
Rainy and cold. The distant firing of a semi-automatic rifle, muffled by valley fog, sounds like nothing so much as a crepitating fart.
October 16, 2020
Rainy and cold. White-throated sparrows call in different keys, each more plaintive than the last. The birches are fluttery with kinglets.
October 13, 2020
Mizzle: the wet feet of a cloud that slowly settles over the glowing trees, the lone, anxious jay, the clarinet voices of wild geese.
October 12, 2020
Rain. A red-eyed vireo is calling. My brother the birder tells me that at daybreak there were seven species of sparrows on the garden fence.
October 4, 2020
A shimmer of moisture in the air, interrupted here and there by an actual raindrop. The roof drips. It’s cold. The lurid colors appall.
September 29, 2020
Hard rain. My brain feels sluggish, despite coffee. A flash of lightning like the apotheosis of all this yellow.
June 18, 2020
Light rain. The towhee who usually taps on the windows appears in the garden with a long yellow caterpillar dangling from his bill.
May 28, 2020
Misty rain. After drinking from the feeder, a hummingbird sips water from the ant guard as if to cleanse her palate.
May 22, 2020
Sky darkening to rain. I realize that the bare soil I’d taken for the spoil heap from some animal’s burrow is in fact a growing ant mound.