Monday morning, June 18,
2010, 5:50-6:45 a.m.
Dawn comes in the east, but
light wells from all directions, incipient sunrise tinting clouds to the west
as well as the east. A feel of coming thunder is in the air. Clouds are now
rippled silk, now shredded gauze, until finally a uniform, featureless screen
prevails over meadow, woods, and orchards as clouds from the west merge with
those in the east, and all homogenize.
Wind is from the west,
bringing weather from over Lake Michigan. The wind brings some sounds closer
and blows others away. Rustling leaves, calling birds—the soundscape forms
layers, both vertical and horizontal, like the compressed visual layers through
binoculars or an old-fashioned stereopticon. Sound layers up from the ground
and away toward the horizons. There is a perfume in the air, too. What is it? Black locust are finished blooming, basswood not yet in blossom.
Popple trees, like their
human counterparts, with nothing to say, whisper ceaselessly. Clouds remain
silent. Clouds are in their world, popples in theirs.
To the southwest, a brief
coyote commotion breaks out. Willow leaves seem to turn inside out in the wind.
Raindrops.
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