Mid-morning, and the rain has dwindled into cold mizzle. In the marsh at the bottom of the meadow, the spring peepers start back up.
spring peeper
Fog and a fine drizzle. A monarch butterfly, oranger than any leaf in view, glides past in the wrong direction. The cheep cheep of a peeper.
Rain from a named storm seems special, like strands of hair from someone famous. Two spring peepers are calling, and faintly, the phoebe.
Dark and rainy. Peepers call from the marsh, and the half-leafed-out lilac seems to glow, achingly green against the brown woods.
The last few wood frogs still croaking down in the marsh give way to spring peepers, who soon fall silent in turn. Then the patter of rain.
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.
Dawn, and the peepers are still calling. The bridal-wreath bush glows brighter than the thin grin of a moon rising through the trees.
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.
A morning so dark, the spring peepers call between showers. At the wood’s edge, slow as a dream, a blue-headed vireo repeats its only line.
What makes the spring peepers start calling in the middle of a morning, with sun so strong I can see the faint pollen filming the floor?
Labor Day. A spring peeper at dawn. In the great silence, I can hear the approach of what will turn into drizzle: the thinnest of whispers.
I can smell the rain coming two hours away. When it finally arrives, mixed in with the falling leaves, two spring peepers begin to call.