Over at the neighbors’, a chainsaw whines and grumbles through a tree, waves of noise rising and falling like the years. A distant crow.
chainsaw
Saturday sounds from down-ridge: crows, a chainsaw snarling and muttering, a pack of dogs—or is it wild geese, somewhere above the clouds?
The sound of chainsaws from over the ridge. A chipmunk races up the big tulip poplar and returns to earth along the first, hung-down limb.
Cloud cover thin as muslin sheet; the woods are anything but gloomy. A small brown moth flutters purposefully past. The neighbor’s chainsaw.
As the predicted snow begins, my parents’ bird feeders grow loud with chittering. An eddy of wind carries the distant snarl of a chainsaw.
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.
Is it overcast or sunny, warm or cold? I don’t even notice. The line crew is back, and they’ve chainsawed the top off a dwarf pear tree.
Loggers clearing trees along the powerline: chainsaws scream, then drop to a low growl. The soft thump of a tree hitting the ground.