Gibbous moon overhead through a thin veil of fog. A breeze moves through the forest, liberating the night’s rain.
rain
Gloomy with a few drops of rain. I spot a new-to-me Virginia creeper six feet from the porch: that crimson.
The last star blinks out just as rain begins to tap on the roof. A spring pepper calls. Dawn begins to seem like a possibility.
The smell of rain without rain falling until past full daylight, and all the chirps and calls of migrants foraging and settling in to roost.
Rain and fog. With the goldenrod going gray, the yellow has moved from the meadow to the woods’ edge: spicebush, walnut, birch, elm, tulip tree.
Sunrise hidden by fog, which only turns a lighter shade of gray. Rain falling from the leaves. Leaves falling from the rain.
A low cloud ceiling gravid with rain. It’s quiet. Every few seconds, another yellow leaf zigzags down.
Thunderstorm at dawn; I rush through my shower so I can watch the rain. With each lightning flash, raindrops falling from the eaves become momentary suns.
The first full day of astronomical autumn dawns to downpour. A cricket in the garden scrapes out a last few, scattered notes.
Sunrise somewhere over the rain. In the dripping forest canopy, a dark card-shuffle of wings.
Rain easing off by mid-morning. At one end of the lilac, I spot some dark leaves: buckthorn, I think, grown 10 feet tall without my noticing.
Rain thickens toward mid-morning as the ex-hurricane moves through. One cricket still calls from the shelter of peony leaves.
Rain and warblers. An earth-shaking blast from the quarry two miles away. The soft susurrus of tree crickets.
Tulip poplar leaves waving like four-fingered, cartoon hands. A shimmer of mizzle thickens into rain. The Carolina wrens go on dueting.