Steady rain from heavy clouds, with the seeming glow of orange and yellow leaves in lieu of a sunrise. A drenched gray squirrel beside the porch peers up at the sky.
rain
From hard rain to a shimmer of drizzle to almost-sun by late morning, I have sat with a wounded foot propped up on the porch railing like an unlucky rabbit, taking whatever comes.
Early-morning rain past, a chill breeze stirs in the tulip poplar beside the springhouse, four-lobed leaves waving like jazz hands on a thousand-armed bodhisattva, some green, some yellow.
Steady rain. An hour past daybreak, it begins to get dark again. The rain comes down harder. A cardinal chirps.
Rain in widely scattered drops, a light seasoning over everything. It intensifies; a half-molted walnut tree begins leafleting the yard. It tapers off. A squirrel chisels open a nut.
The first rain in weeks begins tapping on the roof at dawn. Then it’s here in a rush, the bone-dry leaf duff rattling into a roar.
A shimmer of rain, which the roof gathers into a smattering of drips. A pileated woodpecker flies over, yelling its head off. A pair of catbirds exchange notes.
Rain starts at sunrise and tapers off a half hour later. In its wake: phoebe, pewee, goldfinch, Carolina wren. A cedar waxwing’s whistle.
Overcast and damp. A hummingbird visits the jewelweed growing in the drip line from the roof, which still drips from a shower at dawn. A wood thrush sings.
Overcast at sunrise. Each breeze brings a brief shower from a midnight storm. A mosquito wallows in the long hair of my forearm.
Rain tapering off by eight. Even the fog looks green. Wild garlic plants in the yard are beginning to straighten, heads going up like herons trying to swallow large fish.
Rain and fog. I’m beginning to feel sorry for the 17-year cicadas whose one summer in the sun has so far been so sodden. I watch one go motoring past, wings mirroring the white sky.
An intensely green lushness makes an orphan out of the brown pile of juniper cuttings at the woods’ edge—last winter’s one spot of green. At 7:10, in the pouring rain, the first cicada starts up.
Rain at dawn tapering off into another patter alongside the red-eyed vireo’s. Wood thrushes sing back and forth. From deep in the lilac, a house finch lets loose.