The stream is quieter than I would’ve thought after so much rain. The sun comes out, and the one ant tending to a peony bud moves her antennae.
stream
March 19, 2021
A ray of sun strikes the lilac, setting its yellow buds aglow. The sound of water gurgling under my yard. The back-and-forth of nuthatches.
March 5, 2021
Sunny but cold. The woods-edge chipmunk scuttles back and forth. Tips of dead grasses hanging into the stream have new feet of ice.
March 2, 2021
An hour before sunrise, the bitter wind says winter but the creek says spring. The moon’s gone flat, but is still as bright as a false dawn.
February 19, 2021
Four more inches of dry powder. The stream has shrunk to the thinnest black ribbon between white cliffs—a body that refuses to be buried.
January 17, 2021
Seven cardinals—three pairs and a lone male—take turns drinking from the stream, then perch in the lilac’s bare branches, four feet apart.
January 5, 2021
The mockingbird in a bush beside the stream chases off other birds coming in to drink. A squirrel with only half a tail plods over the snow.
December 29, 2020
Cold and glittery. The stream has subsided to a quiet gurgle, and the nuthatch’s response to his tree is more of a comment than a question.
December 18, 2020
Overcast and cold. Juncos hop down the snowy streambanks for a drink. A female cardinal flies past—the extra red in her open wings.
April 18, 2020
Did it really rain hard last night, or did I dream that? The creek seems no louder. High against the clouds, a small hawk flaps and circles.
March 29, 2020
The almost Kabbalistic way a few syllables of thunder have birthed a whole lexicon of torrent. Fog takes a heavy eraser to the trees.
March 20, 2020
Above the roar of the creek, the first phoebe, phoebe, phoebe. Harlequin ladybirds are emerging from the walls of the house and flying off.
January 23, 2020
Sunrise: a glimpse of yellow from beneath the lid of clouds. Goldfinches flutter down to drink from the stream’s thin fissure of open water.
December 28, 2019
After days of a heavy inversion layer, it’s quiet at last. The snow’s gone. From a hole in the yard I can hear water trickling underground.