Out before dawn, I watch Venus rising through the trees, bright as a searchlight. The distant gargle of jake brakes from the interstate.
trucks
Friday September 28, 2018
Cold and damp. The distant rumble of the heating oil truck’s diesel engine coming up the hollow. Voices of crows. Voices of children.
Thursday September 20, 2018
The laboring motor in the septic service truck, pumping out our tanks—I try to hear anything else. The Carolina wren. An electric drill.
Thursday December 28, 2017
I can hear a titmouse tapping at a sunflower seed 100 feet away. A truck drives up the unplowed road—the squeak of the snow under its tires.
Thursday December 07, 2017
Cold and overcast. The wind eddies around the house, bringing first a few snowflakes, then the distant mechanical gargle of an engine brake.
Friday March 24, 2017
Warm sun and an inversion layer bringing traffic noise from over the ridge. Cardinals and titmice compete with the whine of truck tires.
Tuesday March 14, 2017
Silence has descended along with the snow—6 inches so far—save for the rumble of snowplows. A squirrel walks on the dry underside of a limb.
Monday January 16, 2017
Heavy frost blurs the difference between snow-free meadow and woods, where a white fur lingers. The distant stutter of a Jake-braking truck.
Monday December 26, 2016
Traffic sounds have returned to the valley: tires whistle, trucks groan. Off in the woods, some large animal crunches through the ice.
Thursday October 06, 2016
The flashing light on the meter-reader’s truck emerges from the fog. The meadow is dotted with the white, inverted tents of funnel spiders.