After hard rain in the early hours, the sky is a patchwork of light and dark. The wail of a freight train is faintly audible above the wind.
rain
Rain. In the marshy corner of the field, the duck-like calls of wood frogs, just up from their cryogenic sleep and already fully aroused.
Cold rain. A song sparrow sings sotto voce from beside the stream. In the front garden, one last, late blossom glimmers on the witch hazel.
Dark and rainy. A loud tapping from the far side of the cherry snag next to the porch where a downy woodpecker must’ve spent the night.
More rain. From the treetops, the thin whistles of cedar waxwings. A squirrel digs up a walnut in the yard and buries it a foot away.
Despite all the rain that fell yesterday, the ditches are silent: the forest soaked it all up and now steams and glistens in the sunlight.
Gray rain ripples the air—November’s fur blurring the last splashes of bright October: salmon-colored cherry leaves, a vivid limb of maple.
Sun shining through rain: to the small birds in the treetops, the porch must be ringed in a rainbow. Then it turns to sleet.
Cold rain blowing sideways. The walnut trees behind the house have shed their leaves, unveiling a still-heavy ordnance of green orbs.
After the rain, a drying breeze, shrinking the wet spots around the leaves strewn across the porch floor. Yellow tips rise. Edges flutter.
As leaves begin to flutter in the rain, I notice the small birds fluttering underneath them, like a flash mob that was there all along.
Cold, all-morning rain. Tall goldenrod stalks bow their shaggy heads. From up on the ridge, the nasal calls of blue jays.
A certain lightness to the air despite the steady rain. A monarch flutters into the lilac and finds a spot to dangle like a dead leaf.
Overcast and cool. Chipmunks begin ticking, one after the other, all over the hillside. Suddenly it’s raining. Suddenly it isn’t.