Cold and overcast after a night of rain. The creek is a full chorus. A crow alights in the big tulip tree, breaks off a twig and carries it away.
stream
Mackerel sky like a wrinkled brow. The spring is still singing about the last rain. The phoebe who called at sunrise flicks his tail.
Thick fog alive with robin and red-winged blackbird song. The spring gurgles under the yard. The wingbeats of a crow pass overhead.
Bright sun in a cloudless sky at one degree above freezing. The spring has subsided to a hearty gurgle—the loudest thing once the cardinal falls silent.
The stream is loud with snowmelt and last night’s rain. The fog retreats up the hillside, leaving black birch trunks aglow in green lichen.
Overcast and quiet, after the drama of a thunderstorm at dawn. The creekside currant bushes have turned intensely green. A hen turkey’s peevish rasp.
When the wind dies, I can hear the roaring of the creek. I sit in the dark, composing a limerick in my head.
Hard rain at daybreak easing off into fog. The ground under the trees is still more white than brown. The voices in the creek have increased from a symposium to a convention.
A dark sky at dawn with one bright gash. As it eases shut, an icy breeze springs up. The stream gurgles softly in its sleep.
Bitter cold with a wind. The happy sounds of juncos coming down to drink from the spring’s thin trickle. Overhead, a faint wash of pink.
Clouds like a thick, gray quilt. The creek has sunk to a whisper, and the threadbare snowpack crackles like wax paper under the squirrels’ feet.
Fine snow slowing to a stop by sunrise and resuming 45 minutes later. It’s quiet enough to hear what the creek is saying both before and after it travels under my yard.
Gray and still, except for the creek’s trickle. A squirrel dangles from a low branch of the springhouse tulip tree, trying in vain to tear off a strip of bark.
The wind has dropped, leaving a dusting of snow, and the sky is a patchwork of white and gray. A rifle booms from down-hollow. The creek gurgles on.