In the Christmas Woods / Being the introductory essay of a series on observations of nature through the year

Chapter 2: RAIN UP THE MOUNTAIN.

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About This Book

The essay records a close, seasonal walk through a rain-soaked canyon, blending poetic imagery and careful naturalist observation. The narrator describes a steady winter rain stirring redwoods and understory plants, notes birds taking shelter—particularly a cheerful brown towhee—and documents effects of wind and water such as a fallen alder, a landslide exposing bedrock, a woodpecker’s chips, and early emergence of trillium and Solomon’s seal. Attention to textures, scents, and the resilience of mosses and horsetail underscores themes of beauty, endurance, and the quiet productivity of winter, inviting readers to appreciate subtle seasonal processes rather than dramatic events.

RAIN UP THE MOUNTAIN.

Along the serried slopes a white shape creeps,
Through oak-fringed cañon ways, and up the steeps,
A mystery of silent, shrouding deeps;
Like spirit touching earth while Nature sleeps.

It stirs beneath the laurels, stirs within
The redwood’s circling shade, and light and thin,
Where the brown towhee builds, and spiders spin,
Shuts the twist manzanita’s tangle in.

With swaying tops and quivering leaves adart,
Held for a while within the mist’s white heart
Like shadowy travelers ready to depart—
Tall, wavering shapes of eucalyptus start.

From far below, where level spreads the plain;
Traveling with jeweled feet the hastening grain,
Touching the slumbering hills to life again,
Marching along the summits, comes the rain!