Sound is out of the east: quarry trucks and grinders. In the gray woods, gray squirrels glide silently over the rain-slicked leaf duff.
quarry
September 21, 2015
The wind is out of the east, and, slight as it is, carries an acrid, chemical smell from the sewage plant and the quarry’s dull roar.
August 18, 2015
Just after full daylight, a patter of raindrops on the roof. My guests are departing. The steady, dull roar of machines at the quarry.
August 7, 2015
Seeing the big maple silhouetted against the dawn sky, I notice for the first time it’s half dead. A clanking as the quarry comes to life.
July 16, 2015
Clear and cold as October, with an inversion layer to match: the rising sun grinds and thunders with the sound of the quarry to our east.
May 29, 2015
Cool at sunrise, and with warmer air aloft, the roar of the quarry to our east rolls in over the ridge as if it were the sun’s own engines.
August 25, 2014
Overcast and cool. Behind the occasional calls of wood pewee and solitary vireo, a continuous, grinding whine from the quarry. It’s Monday.
April 4, 2014
After all-night rain, the sound of rushing water in all directions. I can barely hear the birds. A distant, dull clanking from the quarry.
March 11, 2014
Sunny and warm; the air fills with insects. A sudden boom from the quarry two miles away. I feel the mountain tremble under my chair.
October 10, 2013
A muffled explosion from the east: more dynamiting of the valley’s limestone. The sparrows in the lilac act like nothing happened.
August 21, 2013
Quarry roar, how I have not missed you! But from the other direction, out of the mist, the yellow-billed cuckoo’s soft call.
December 9, 2012
A flat-gray sky. Train whistles and quarry noise travel up the hollow, accompanying two overlapped umbrellas, one black, one white.
August 23, 2012
Sound is out of the east. And even first thing in the morning, the machines at the quarry sound tired. They bellow. They groan. They keen.
March 21, 2012
Sound is out of the east: a ululating quarry truck, a train whistle that won’t shut up. Clouds thin just where the sun is—a sudden glow.