No wind, but some slight motion of the air brings the sound of trucks and the sour smell of sewage up the hollow. The first drops of rain.
trucks
November 1, 2011
Traffic through the gap is loud this All Saints Day morning. Sunrise reddens the western ridge, and a thin mist rises from the snow.
October 24, 2011
The woods are more open by the day. Three croaks from overhead: raven. The electric company’s line crew arrives, red flags on their truck.
October 23, 2011
Two pileated woodpeckers forage in the birches, scarlet crests glowing in the sun, the sky below them in the windshield of a parked truck.
September 13, 2011
As so often in fall, a clear morning sky means not clarity but inversion—the bellowing of trucks. A yellow leaf lands with a soft click.
September 3, 2011
A hummingbird buzzes into the garden, and I follow her bill to the last bergamot flower’s four thin flagons. A truck clatters past.
July 20, 2011
A rare-for-summer inversion layer: throaty jake-break and tire whine, you sound like winter, that discordant note running under our lives.
July 5, 2011
A cuckoo climbs the trunk of the tulip tree, pausing every few inches to search for prey. The dump truck goes by with a rattle and clang.
February 17, 2011
It’s in the 40s and noisy with the sound of trucks. Each tree stands in a small circle of melted ground like a bear balancing on a unicycle.
January 26, 2011
A distant quarry truck’s reverse beeper has gone bad, and trills just like a digital alarm clock. Dueling chickadees tumble through the air.
January 1, 2011
Gray sky thin as an eyelid for the sun’s approximate blaze. The distant gargles of an 18-wheeler jake-breaking into town set off the crows.
October 24, 2010
All along the ridgetop now the sky is visible, cathedral-sized windows between the trees. The throaty roar of the neighbor’s pickup truck.
August 18, 2010
Overcast and cool, with the beeping of quarry trucks. A pair of cardinals land above the dry creek bed, exchange a few chirps, and fly off.
February 17, 2010
I strain to hear the waking birds, but sound is out of the west: cars, trucks, winter tires—the fossil-fueled Fat Tuesday that never ends.