As daylight gathers, the sky goes from white to gray. A train whistle trailed by its rumble of freight. The distant propellers of a plane.
plane
September 1, 2013
The den hole in the dead elm seems less than empty, like an eye socket in a skull. A single-prop plane goes over, hidden by the clouds.
February 25, 2013
The sound of a single-propeller plane—a rare thing nowadays—draws my eye to a hawk circling a thermal high over the ridge’s glossy snowpack.
July 29, 2012
Tiny ants are digging holes in the tansy flowers—yellow eyes with seething black pupils. A single-propeller plane: the sound of a clear day.
April 12, 2012
A bright blue morning. It takes the drone of a plane to draw my attention to a new bird call: the first blue-headed vireo of the year.
March 10, 2012
It’s not my imagination; the bluebird saves his best song for the bluest skies. But this morning, even a passing plane sounds inspired.
August 22, 2011
A plane drags its cross-shaped shadow over the ridge, loud as an evangelist. A few clouds. Half a moon abandoned in the center of the sky.
August 29, 2010
As the plane fades in the distance, they return: a towhee, two lethargic vireos, a chipmunk’s water-drip-steady clucks, the garden cricket.
July 26, 2010
The small cross of a plane against the blue, its distant drone. A flicker climbing the dead elm loses his footing on a patch of sunlight.
June 9, 2010
Steady rain. A phoebe snatches insects from the undersides of birch leaves, and in the distant drone of an airplane I hear news of the sun.
April 22, 2010
Every day is the earth’s birthday. The largest peony plant, though still uncurling, already sports ten small planets midwived by ants.
May 27, 2009
November 9, 2007
A doe trailed by a scrawny 5-point buck. The soundtrack includes a train, a raven, geese, a wren, and a low-flying plane with a wide eraser.