Fog and steady rain. A drenched gray squirrel bounds across what’s left of the snow and clears the rushing stream with a flying leap.
rain
Branches skinned by rabbits, yellow as fresh bones, are starting to emerge from the snowpack. Light rain on my glasses turns my view to blear.
When I step out, a pileated woodpecker flies cackling from a nearby tree, his crest as bright as a stop light this gray and rainy morning.
Steady rain. The corners of the yard still glisten dully with the pellet ice that fell in the night.
The ongoing warmth and rain have reduced the snow to scattered patches. Above the roar of the creek, a flock of goldfinches whistling.
Warm rain. Fog rises from the melting snowpack, lifting and sinking in obedience to imperceptible changes in the air.
There’s a shimmer in the air: rain fine as the hair on a woman’s back. The wet tree trunks are scrofulous with lichen.
Rain and fog. Two bucks stand among the trees, antlers dripping as they lower their heads for a better look at the doe lying in the weeds.
Cold rain. Three sparrows forage in the weeds next to a barberry bush, its green branches harboring masses of blood-red berries.
Mist thickens into drizzle; the phoebe falls silent. Under the deer-ravaged black currant bushes, slick black rocks where the stream begins.
The all-night rain has stripped the leaves off the witch hazel, revealing the flowers, some clutching raindrops in their pale skinny petals.
The silhouettes of small birds (goldfinches?) darting through the crown of a black birch as wind and driving rain strip it of leaves.
The clouds thicken, gravid with rain. A squirrel climbing the walnut tree next to the road pauses on the first limb to lick its genitals.
Under a bowed head of goldenrod, a black and yellow garden spider hangs head-down, her web glittering with drops from last night’s rain.