The woods are green again. Not up high, but low to the ground.
The raindrops are big and heavy. They splat loudly on and around me.
Marsh marigolds with yellow buds, perfectly round hummocks sprouting grass like sunbeams, wild mustard, the spotted leaves of Trout lilies and hundreds or thousands of tiny stems and leaves.
There’s a hollowed out bone, like a sacrifice, nestled in the moss on a rock. The underside is smooth and the top chiseled by rodent teeth. It’s been there long enough to leave an impression in the moss.
The rootball of the fallen Shagbark Hickory is starting to sprout. The plants still grow straight up towards the sun, it’s just that their “straight up” is different than it used to be.
The deer trail is even easier to find with green on both sides. Fate and Zinnia’s curious noses find deer poop too good to pass up. I don’t call them away, just as they leave me to stare at the raindrops decorating the thin horizontal branches of the Musclewood.
I step over a broken elm, thin enough for me to wrap my hands around, the buds still green with life.
