A shimmer in the air thickens into drizzle, dripping from bedraggled rudbeckia petals, limp tubes of bergamot and the crisp, white soapwort.
rain
June 10, 2013
It’s raining. The chickadees have fledged and gone, and their hole in the cherry stump seems as empty as a skull’s eye socket.
June 7, 2013
A deer at the edge of the rain-drenched meadow seems rooted to the spot. At last I glimpse beneath her belly the ears of a very small fawn.
June 2, 2013
Rainy and cool. A pair of goldfinches spiral up from the meadow, twittering. I find a dead ant in my last mouthful of coffee.
May 28, 2013
The hollow tock of a chipmunk calling from within the rock wall. A chickadee perched atop the stump opens his wings wide to shake off rain.
May 23, 2013
Rain in the wee hours has left the lilac with leaves bent over, showing their pale backs. Above, the white missiles of black cherry blooms.
May 15, 2013
Clouds darken. The wind carries the sound of lawnmowers. When the rain starts, it feels like an unresolved chord finally returning home.
May 11, 2013
I feel it before I see it: in the half-light, the intense green of new leaves. The sound of field sparrows, towhees, spring peepers, rain.
May 9, 2013
When the mid-morning rain eases up, the phoebe comes out to hawk for gnats, and I hear the first wood thrush singing—those pure, sad notes.
April 12, 2013
A phoebe perched high in a red maple shakes rain from its feathers, its tail twitching up and down, up and down among the dark red blooms.
April 1, 2013
Rain just past, the gray sky brightens above the eastern and western horizons. A titmouse descends singing into the lilac.
February 11, 2013
A cloud has settled in and delegated to the trees its responsibility to rain. Some restless animal gnaws on a beam under the house.
January 31, 2013
Blowing snow plasters my boots, propped up on the railing. The creek is living in the past as usual, roaring with last night’s heavy rains.
December 18, 2012
Over the sound of the wind, the opening note of a fire siren. Thin, cold rain flies sideways, mixed with snowflakes. The sun struggles out.