This isn’t silence but a steady roar, ridgetop wind drowning out everything except for the wren, who translates that agitation into his own.
Carolina wren
The sun rises above a mass of cloud looming like the lost, real mountain for which this is a foothill. A wren pops out from under the porch.
The mutter and whine of a distant two-stroke engine. Though the sun’s a dim smear, I can’t stop sneezing. A Carolina wren trills in alarm.
Fire sirens. A wren’s burble. In a tree at the woods’ edge, two crows jeering a raven fall silent when it flies right over their heads.
Thin clouds; the sun is a crayon-yellow smudge. The excited yells of a seven-year-old echo off the ridge. A wren tut-tuts.
The lilac is alive with chickadees, sparrows, and a Carolina wren stropping his bill on a twig. He flits to a high perch and begins to sing.
A voice woke me from a dream this morning, telling me there was snow on the ground—and there is! A Carolina wren trills from a snowy branch.
The soft-edged shadows glimmer with frost; the stripes of dim sunlight glisten. Only the Carolina wren insists on clarity, clarity, clarity.
A smudge of a sun sits in the crown of the tall tulip poplar like a grotesque fruit. Bluebird and Carolina wren song: a joyous soundtrack.
An agitated Carolina wren progresses from between-station radio static noises to musical chirps, then silence. A freight train wails.
Something in the lilac attracts half-hearted alarms from a chickadee, two titmice and a wren. The lilac leaves hang limp in the humid air.
The sun climbs through the big red maple. A young Carolina wren sits on the springhouse gable, still and quiet, just swiveling its head.
In the morning coolness, I glimpse a pair of Carolina wrens perched on a lilac branch, touching bills to pass some winged morsel.
An hour past sunrise. The downpour past, a Carolina wren and a common yellowthroat both sing in fast waltz time.