As above, so below—the ground the same white as the cloud ceiling. My thick hat excludes all but the sound of wind and birds and a train horn’s dissonant chord.
train
2/11/2023
Bright and cold. I pull down my hat brim to see the shadows of the trees striping my yard. Valley noise is minimal but for one train horn, clear as a blast on an angel’s trumpet.
12/5/2022
Cold and still. Dove wings accompany a train whistle. A red sunrise creeps down the western ridge.
10/10/2022
Sunrise has been delayed by clouds, but I hold out hope. A wren tuts impatiently. A train horn blows a flat minor chord.
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.
5/23/2022
Half awake at half-light. The dawn chorus starts promptly at 5:00 with field sparrow and towhee, then song sparrow, phoebe, robin. Train horn.
4/24/2022
Cool beginning of a day forecast to be hot. The high, thin whistles of waxwings. A fantastically dissonant freight train horn.
2/21/2022
Sun shining through thin, high clouds. An inversion layer turns the rumble of a freight train into something I can feel in my chest.
12/27/2021
Heavily overcast, with the background rumble of industry: a whole Monday-after-Christmas mood. A raven’s hoarse commentary.
12/25/2021
Little is audible over the drumming of the rain but a train horn—and of course the Carolina wren, sounding as insistently joyous as ever.
12/19/2021
Full moon gone in, I feel snowflakes on my face, their almost clinical touch. The sound of a train. The springhouse roof turning white.
11/10/2021
Dawn comes with a light breeze rummaging through the oaks, a freight train laboring up the valley, the tutting of robins.
10/23/2021
A dark and rainy dawn. One especially well-harmonized train horn and the sparrows and wrens wake up.
2/9/2021
Fine snow. Cleaning the dust off my glasses, everything blurs together: white sky, white ground, the noise of trains and sparrows.