Around mid-morning, one of the groundhogs living under the house emerges from a hole beside the porch and goes off to forage. The sun appears through a hole in the clouds and lights up the elderberry blossoming beside the creek.
stream
After hard rain in the night, the creek is high and babbles incoherently. The red squirrel runs past my feet with growing confidence in my harmlessness, only its ears poking up above the railing that separates us.
Leaves droop on the elderberry and currant bushes beside the creek—another light frost. April was the cruelest month for trees and shrubs, but May so far hasn’t been much better. On the other hand, a Carolina wren is calling in the yard for the first time in ages.
A freakishly warm breeze lightly seasoned with rain. The sun appears and disappears at random. A Louisiana waterthrush calls from the first bend in the creek below the spring.
Foggy and cool. The distant lowing of a cow. In the currant bushes straddling the stream, a house finch burbles.
After night-long rain, a gray almost-radiance. The black birches are looking sharp in their gray-green lichens. The creek is high and making little sense.
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.
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.