Cool but not quite as clear, with a thin, high scrim of clouds and the incessant beeping of quarry trucks, to which a migrant phoebe briefly responds.
quarry
9/17/2023
Gray sky ten minutes after a flaming sunrise. A phoebe calls for old times’ sake. Quarry trucks rumble through the gap.
8/23/2023
Cold at dawn, with the lightest of breezes bringing sounds from the east—mostly the limestone quarry’s dull roar. A screech owl trills. The clouds go pink.
6/19/2023
Monday morning: back to the literal grind from the quarry. The red-eyed vireo’s usual spell makes nothing happen. A loose strand of spider silk catches the sun.
2/22/2023
Just enough thinning of clouds for a classic, red-in-the-morning wash of mauve in the east, where quarry trucks are loud with their first loads.
11/3/2022
Cold and clear at sunrise, with sound out of the east: the quarry’s daily grind instead of the interstate. A jay answers a reverse-beeping truck.
9/2/2022
Cool and clear except for wisps of shredded contrails. Sound is out of the east: rumble of a train, the quarry’s grind.
12/27/2021
Heavily overcast, with the background rumble of industry: a whole Monday-after-Christmas mood. A raven’s hoarse commentary.
11/17/2021
Rising late to a sky as gray as my head. Quarry trucks are beeping. The Carolina wren has switched to a minor key.
8/18/2021
Rain and warblers. An earth-shaking blast from the quarry two miles away. The soft susurrus of tree crickets.
2/15/2021
Five doves sit motionless in the crabapple. The drumming of a pileated woodpecker seemingly in response to metallic banging from the quarry.
5/13/2020
An earth-shaking blast from the quarry, preceded by a muffled boom as if by its own echo. I catch a glimpse of a hummingbird’s long tongue.
3/26/2018
The sun yellows one branch after another. From the east, the sound of a pneumatic hammer burrowing in the bed of a 450 million-year-old sea.
3/19/2018
Blue sky with quarry noise and a singing robin. The sun stretches one finger of light down through all the trees on the hillside.