Warmer, and the daffodils have once more managed to stand up. There goes the meter-reader’s white pickup, topped by a flashing orange light.
trucks
June 5, 2015
After verifying that the latest vehicle to drive up does not contain her people, the old dog lies down, resignation written in every muscle.
April 7, 2015
A bright period between showers. Coming around the bend in the road, the flashing yellow light on the roof of the meter-reader’s truck.
February 19, 2015
Through driving snow, our neighbor is out plowing the road. The plow’s hydraulics whine like a sled dog. Tire chains scrabble at the ice.
December 24, 2014
Fog. In the absence of the usual noise from quarry and factories, I can hear every grunt and groan of the trucks jake-braking on I-99.
December 8, 2014
The sun slowly dims in the whitening sky. Soft taps of a woodpecker. The flashing orange light on the roof of the meter reader’s truck.
March 14, 2014
Over the rumbling of an oil truck, the cry of a gull far from the sea. I go to the edge of the porch and look: a V of gulls heading west.
February 13, 2014
Sound, like the rest of the weather, is out of the east: plow trucks, slow-moving trains, a dog barking on and on at the falling snow.
February 1, 2014
A red-bellied woodpecker yammers from tree to tree, all around the yard. A builder drives by with nothing in the bed of his truck.
June 6, 2013
On a dark, rainy morning, the flashing orange light on the meter reader’s truck. A heron flies over the house—its long, skinny legs.
January 9, 2013
Traffic noise from over the hill is deafening—the icy snowpack has become a sounding board. In the tulip tree, four slow, amorous squirrels.
September 5, 2012
The distant gargle of compression release engine brakes. Dark clouds moving very slowly, as if deliberating where to drop their rain.
April 13, 2012
Up in the woods, one witch hazel has already leafed out—a green flame. The rumble of a pickup approaching then failing to appear.
January 10, 2012
My brother’s gray truck parked out front makes the house seem diminished and sad, like a boat stranded miles from the sea.