1:15 a.m. Thinking there’s something chewing on the leaves outside my window, I get the flashlight and discover rain. Time for bed.
rain
The hairs on my arm tower over the scarlet mite wandering among them. The air shimmers with what the Chinese call maomaoyu—fine hair rain.
The distant gargle of compression release engine brakes. Dark clouds moving very slowly, as if deliberating where to drop their rain.
A shimmer of rain. One of the lower branches on the big tulip tree has been stripped of bark, but its leaves haven’t gotten the news.
Just after daylight, the sound of a shower approaching and petering out before it reaches the porch. Two chickadees flit through the bushes.
Spiderwebs in the meadow and the big rosettes of mullein leaves next to the road glisten with their haul of beads from last night’s rain.
A deer leaps and twists in the tall grass to elude a fly, his damp pelt pale as a salmon, hoarse breathing just audible above the rain.
An indigo bunting lands on a grass stalk and sinks from view. A white moth on a white column trembles for an instant when the rain returns.
The first peony, which opened yesterday, is too small to topple from the weight of rain. It merely tilts its flushed face toward the woods.
Drizzle. Just as I get the binoculars out, the cedar waxwings all take off whistling from the tulip tree and its outrageous yellow blooms.
Chipmunks chase in the driveway. A hummingbird hovers beside the porch, sipping rainwater from a spiderweb in the tall weeds.
An hour past sunrise. The downpour past, a Carolina wren and a common yellowthroat both sing in fast waltz time.
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.
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.