The walk is shiny with recent rain, and the west wind is damp and full of sounds from the valley: tires humming, the heavy thrum of a train.
train
October 5, 2011
Sunrise, and the sky is clear. From behind the red ridge, two train whistles blow at the same time in different keys. A car door slams.
March 30, 2011
Overcast. A train whistle coming from the wrong direction. The resident naturalist stops at the corner of the wall, gets out her hand lens.
March 11, 2011
The ground is mostly bare again, but the wind is salted with more fine flakes. Water thunders in every ditch. A freight train wails.
January 22, 2011
Intense cold, and a stillness so deep the trains can barely be heard. A cardinal flickers like a pilot light under the bridal wreath bush.
December 24, 2010
Before dawn, nothing but wind and trains. In the crown of a birch, Venus burns so fiercely, even the fast-moving clouds can’t extinguish it.
November 5, 2010
The wind rustles in the crown of one red oak; all the others are still. A train whistle. The light patches in the clouds fade to blue.
October 27, 2010
An hour before dawn, a high thin cloud drifts northeast to the rumble of a freight train. When the half-moon intersects, a rainbow disc.
September 23, 2010
Thick fog at daybreak, as if the bright moon of 2am had spread a kind of mildew over the mountain. Train whistle. A nuthatch’s nasal call.
June 23, 2010
No trains are running. The black-and-white warbler’s quiet wheeze competes only with the distant vuvuzelas of rubber on road.
February 1, 2010
Wind and water, scattered chirps of winter finches, the sound of two freight trains going through the gap: exactly the music I needed.
December 15, 2009
Dark clouds. Steady drum of meltwater. A locomotive with the low note of its whistle stuck open like a bagpipe drone moans through the gap.
November 24, 2009
Rain and fog with raven: silent, just above the treetops. White-throated sparrows and a freight train whistling at the same pitch.
December 10, 2008
Rain and fog. Only the low rumbly sounds break through: a jet, a train. Sitting in the dark, it’s almost possible to believe in isolation.