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.
train
No trains are running. The black-and-white warbler’s quiet wheeze competes only with the distant vuvuzelas of rubber on road.
Wind and water, scattered chirps of winter finches, the sound of two freight trains going through the gap: exactly the music I needed.
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.
Rain and fog with raven: silent, just above the treetops. White-throated sparrows and a freight train whistling at the same pitch.
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.
Quiet except for the wail of an eastbound freight: Grazierville. Tyrone. Plummer’s Hollow. Then wind and darkness, coffee bitter in my cup.
I’m beginning to distinguish individual locomotives by their whistles. The majority merely say Look Out, but a few almost manage I Am.
A bat swoops past my face—a puff of wind. The interminable whistle of a train creeping toward the crossing. A sliver of moon.
Gray sky, and the air is lousy with snowflakes. The usual birds are making the usual chirps. A train whistle, horrendously out of tune.
Clear, cold, and very quiet. A distant train whistle is picked up and repeated by a screech owl. The incremental progress of the moon.
Siren, train whistle, a red-bellied woodpecker ululating in the yard. It’s snowing. Squirrel tracks cross the porch in front of my chair.
Not all natural sounds are pleasant, not all industrial sounds are ugly: the train whistle sounds so much better than a scolding squirrel!