Blue-gray layered with yellow-orange a half hour past sunrise. The creek is still singing about Tuesday’s rain, and the one oak at the woods’ edge that always holds onto its dead leaves hisses in the wind.
stream
May 1, 2023
Cold and half-clear for a red sunrise. The stream is still quiet—more raininess than actual rain. From off in the distance, a wood thrush’s ethereal trill.
March 27, 2023
Sunrise into thin cirrus. A few seconds of liquid joy: the song of winter wrens, two of them, darting low over the creek.
March 24, 2023
Gray and still. Springs gurgle their liturgies. Looking nervously all about, a squirrel disinters a walnut and races into the woods with it.
February 25, 2023
A quiet gurgling from the springs on either side of my yard. Bands of light and darkness in the east. The sun pops out from behind a tree.
January 25, 2023
My phone insists it’s snowing, but the clouds hold their fire. The ground is nearly bare again; it could use a fresh coat. The creek has subsided to a quiet soliloquy.
January 10, 2023
Overcast but bright, and very quiet apart from the stream’s gurgle. Two squirrels seem to be hanging out, but only one acts amorous—the other remains focused on her walnut.
January 4, 2023
The mountain is loud with running water; it sounds like March. Returning from hunting, the feral cat gives me a baleful glance as she slinks under the porch.
January 2, 2023
The sound of running water in the darkness. Occasional soft, sparrowy chirps as the sky brightens. Then the wren’s impatience bubbles over.
January 1, 2023
A clearing sky at sunrise with the sound of running water and a wren. The snow is looking threadbare, even on north-facing slopes.
November 5, 2022
Unseasonably warm with a lowering sky. A six-point buck emerges from the woods and struts over to the stream as a doe looks on.
May 13, 2022
Cloudy with a 100% chance of warblers. A wood thrush gets a drink from the stream and resumes singing. The smell of lilacs.
May 8, 2022
A wet and shining woods stippled with burst buds. Over the rush of the creek, a cerulean warbler’s buzzy love song to the sky.
May 7, 2022
After 24 hours of rain, water streams from the mountain’s every pore. The daffodils’ last trumpet points toward the forest.