An ostinato of dripping on the porch roof. The fog advances, retreats. Somewhere a deer snorts. Drenched squirrels bound over the slush.
rain
The woods after a rain, when branches have dried but trunks and limbs are still damp: kirei na kanji, as they say in Japan. A clean feeling.
The earth is brown again, and the hillside hidden in fog. A one-minute rain shower. Nuthatches chatter. The sun makes a bleary appearance.
Rain has erased the snow. High in a black locust, a squirrel is biting off twigs and carrying them into a crotch, building a bed of thorns.
Steady rain. The fog retreats 100 yards up the hillside without seeming to move, trees like a flash mob suddenly emerging from anonymity.
In the steady rain, a gray squirrel is climbing all over the big tulip tree, as if searching for something. A raven goes croaking overhead.
Cold rain thickens into a downpour. A Cooper’s hawk lands in the top of a tall locust and sits preening and shaking, as if taking a shower.
Raindrops grow farther and farther apart until there are none. Three squirrels screech in counterpoint, a preaching choir of fear.
Rainy and warm. A paper wasp walks unsteadily back and forth on the bottom railing. Squirrels keep scolding some long-gone predator.
Fog and rain. The stream runs brown, as if to match the woods and meadow. The pink flamingo in my garden is looking distinctly out of place.
The traffic noise is deafening; even the crows are hard to hear. The air starts to shimmer with what Chinese call maomaoyu—fine-hair rain.
A raven flies croaking toward the sun, which is just breaking through the clouds. The rain-soaked forest is suddenly, shimmeringly aglow.
A tulip-tree leaf under the drip line cups its portion of rain. A chipmunk hidden in the dead grass shrieks when I turn the page of my book.
High winds after a soaking rain. The fallen walnuts in the driveway have all turned black, soggy hulls sagging like bodies in a bog.