An hour past sunrise. The downpour past, a Carolina wren and a common yellowthroat both sing in fast waltz time.
rain
3/24/2012
Rain. Two deer in a high-speed chase crash through the laurel, the one in pursuit grunting like a buck gone into rut eight months early.
3/16/2012
At dawn, scattered drops—a passing shower. Spring peepers in the corner of the field call in spurts, like an engine running out of fuel.
1/27/2012
The white flame of a deer’s tail bobs among the laurel. Another doe shakes her head, flinging rain water in all directions.
1/17/2012
Cold rain drips in the pre-dawn darkness. The wail of a locomotive sounds frighteningly close and full of an obscure, mechanical longing.
12/21/2011
A dark dawn. As light grows, the rain falls harder, thundering on the porch roof, drowning out all other sounds but a locomotive’s wail.
12/7/2011
Rain. I’m mesmerized by the driveway puddles, how rings of ripples form and overlap, each raindrop magnified at the point of termination.
11/24/2011
The ground is still saturated from Tuesday’s rain. Through the hole in my yard, the sound of the underground stream’s insurgent song.
11/21/2011
No wind, but some slight motion of the air brings the sound of trucks and the sour smell of sewage up the hollow. The first drops of rain.
11/15/2011
Muddy footprints cross the porch and stop in front of my chair. Their probable owner crouches nearby in the rain like an evicted squatter.
11/14/2011
Warm and wet—almost a March day, were it not for that rustle the rain makes on leaves, still crisp and curled in the first blush of death.
10/26/2011
The walk is shiny with recent rain, and the west wind is damp and full of sounds from the valley: tires humming, the heavy thrum of a train.
10/14/2011
Rain. And in the woods, a continual downward flight of leaves, meandering from side to side like all lost things. The rain falls harder.
10/13/2011
Rain and fog. A pileated woodpecker performs invasive surgery on a locust tree next to the springhouse, removing a malignant colony of ants.