PROMPT FROM THE CHALLENGED

Monday after Easter

Pitter-patter, shrieked, clanged, honking, rumbled, creaked

Family eating dinner — Askar Abayev on Pexels

Monday, the day after Easter, thunder rumbled as the skies grew dark in the late afternoon. I read the internet’s daily weather forecast, notably unreliable. I wasn’t expecting rain. The slow, gentle pitter-patter of rain was replaced by big drops that slammed into windshields, wipers sloshing water to keep up. Then the storm was over, and the sun came out. The bird bath held a refreshed drinking basin.

My granddaughter shrieked, laughing, five-year-old girl shrieks, which hurt my ears. “Stop!” said her mother. “You will hurt our ears.” I love my granddaughter so much, but when I had little boys, including her father, I thought an advantage was that they did not shriek. A parent/writer could employ many verbs for boys, but shriek was not one.

I clanged the Buddhist gong, small, sonorous, and mid-pitched, for dinner summons. Geese flew overhead, honking, in my little backyard, bounded by a thicket housing many birds. The Cornell Ornithology app indicated geese, spotted towhees, Bewick’s wren, and Steller’s jay in the last ten minutes. I am learning birds by their calls from their hiding spots in the shrubs.