The red maple blossoms are open at last, puffs of red anthers or orange pollen. A white-throated sparrow sings without stopping in the rain.
rain
Despite the steady rain and continued cold, the first daffodils are out around the dog statue, limp yellow frocks sodden against the ground.
The porch is sleek with blown rain. Just past dawn I glimpse a small hawk circling low over the trees—long-tailed accipiter, a dark cross.
Cold and dawn-dark at 8:30. The ridge disappears into cloud, allowing me to imagine real mountains—a fastness far from anything but rain.
Cold, gray and rainy. I’m wearing my spring coat, but it could be November, except for the pussy willow catkins—those glimmering furs.
The ground is mostly bare again, but the wind is salted with more fine flakes. Water thunders in every ditch. A freight train wails.
Hard rain falling into slush, and the fog thickening: cloud into cloud. Buds glow yellow on the lilac where two titmice flit.
Small rain on an east wind. Swelling buds impart a faint red hue to the woods’ edge, and a song sparrow states the obvious: spring is here.
After all-night rain, snow cover persists in the woods, but it must be thin. The trees loom and fade as the fog shifts. The stream roars.
A thumping in the crawlspace under the house and muddy footprints in the snow: the resident woodchuck is in heat. Rain drums on the roof.
After last night’s rain, the snow fits each dip and hummock more tightly, like a garment shrunk in the wash. The creaking of doves’ wings.
Freezing rain and fog. Snowbirds crowd the melted tire tracks in the gravel driveway, filling their gizzards wth grit while they can.
Tuesday’s rain still roars in the creek and gurgles under the yard. The moss garden has turned mountainous from an orogeny of ice.
A cold, wet morning that must test the hunters’ mettle. Over the rain, the rattle of the window-tapping cardinal clashing with her nemesis.