The sun emerging from mid-morning haze makes the rain-damp leaves shine. A scarlet tanager sings just out of sight at the wood’s edge.
rain
July 4, 2015
In the downpour, a chipping sparrow forages for its breakfast beneath the lilac leaves, gleaning insects that sought shelter from the rain.
June 28, 2015
Garlic heads in the yard are beginning to uncurl—curved arrows pointing in all directions. But the rain still follows its straight road.
June 27, 2015
Fragments of vireo and goldfinch song mingle with the rain’s thunderous applause. A few filmy-winged insects still somehow manage to fly.
June 26, 2015
Gray sky in which the sun slowly surfaces like a carp in a murky pond. Rain-slick leaves glisten. A great spangled fritillary zigzags past.
June 21, 2015
The light between showers. A groundhog plows through the stiltgrass in the yard. Later, two chipmunks touch noses at the end of the porch.
June 18, 2015
I look up from my book and realize it’s raining again, a downward shimmer. I try forgetting the names of unseen birds—this buzz, that cry.
June 8, 2015
It rained in the wee hours; everything drips. Does the catbird, too, suffer from insomnia? He does an uncanny imitation of a whip-poor-will.
May 31, 2015
A light mist rises from the rain-soaked grass. Just as I’m writing this, a hummingbird buzzes in to inspect the red lettering on my T-shirt.
May 27, 2015
The rain starts just as I come out onto the porch. White blossoms atop a black locust tree fade into the crowd of leaves mirroring the sky.
May 21, 2015
Momentary things: A chipmunk pressing the rain from its fur. The swaying of a branch from which a grackle has just taken flight.
May 17, 2015
Heard but not seen: a hummingbird skirmish. The mist thickens to drizzle, and right on cue a yellow-billed cuckoo—so-called rain crow—calls.
May 5, 2015
A hollow oak dead for 30 years has finally collapsed, its fragments piled next to the stump like abandoned clothes. The first few raindrops.
April 22, 2015
Birdsong amid the rain. My brother’s ailing dog joins me on the porch, lying down with a sigh on the squirrel’s wet footprints.