Rain easing off from a dawn storm. The peony buds look almost ready to open. A raincrow croons.
rain
May 18, 2024
Rain and fog shut out all sounds from the valley; a gobbling turkey and a pair of pileated woodpeckers are the loudest things. A titmouse sheltering in the lilac shakes the rain from his wings.
May 15, 2024
Gloomy and damp, with a shimmer of mizzle. The distant boom of dynamite at the quarry. A catbird improvises a few melodic lines. A breeze springs up.
May 11, 2024
An hour past sunrise, an opossum is out hunting earthworms pushed out of their burrows by the all-night rain. She keeps pausing to raise her snout and sniff the air like a connoisseur.
May 10, 2024
Steady rain. A gnatcatcher flutters to find breakfast on the undersides of leaves, then retreats to the shelter of the lilac to shake the water off. A chipmunk runs under my chair to eat one seed at the far end of the porch.
May 5, 2024
Gloomy sunrise, with a cloud snagged on the treetops, leaking rain. A titmouse takes advantage of a lull in the chorus to hype his own claim. A tanager’s plucked string.
May 4, 2024
Gentle rain. The intense green of new leaves everywhere but inside the ring of fencing around a tulip tree that appeared in my yard during the pandemic like a blessing. Its buds show no sign they’ll ever open again. I don’t know why.
May 1, 2024
Cloudless at sunrise, with rain still clinging to the grass. Tree leaves are on average half open now, making the woods’ edge half screen, half wall.
April 27, 2024
Under a white sky, the rambling old white lilac is beginning to bloom. Half an hour past sunrise, the first, tentative raindrops on the roof.
April 10, 2024
Rainy and cool. An eastern towhee is urging me—according to the time-honored birders’ mnemonic—to drink my tea, while woodpeckers large and small bang their heads against the trees.
April 6, 2024
A spit of rain in my face at sunrise, despite the lack of clouds—classic April. It’s cold. The miniature daffodils have been blooming for a solid month.
April 3, 2024
In the pre-dawn darkness, nothing but the sounds of rain and water. A low rumbling comes from the hole in my yard that leads down to the stream just before it emerges into a spring.
April 2, 2024
Rain. Every ditch runs with whitewater. Behind the bright forsythia, a gray wall of fog swallows the trees. Nevertheless, a wren.
April 1, 2024
The all-night rain doesn’t let up for dawn. The dim light spreads from the southeast, where the waning moon must be, to the east. It’s April. Fools and poets rejoice.