Rain sounds

Across the valley a freight train is slowly gathering speed as it heads west along the tracks. Its mournful whistle sounds as if it was chugging across the side lawn.
It could even be right under the old swing set where I hang my many birdfeeders.
It demands that I hear it and notice out loud.

When I was filling the stove just before this miserable storm, it sounded as if the boss was using some large, unfamiliar, piece of machinery over in the barnyard. I wondered what it could be, since after all these years I am familiar with the different pitches of the engines of every tractor we have. Then he appeared right behind me to help me toss in logs. It took me the rest of the day to figure out that the east wind was making the sound of the Interstate echo off the L-shaped side of the cow barn….it was as loud as if there really were a tractor there.

Walking to the barn later, in the half darkness of a bleak winter rain, I heard, as clear as if it were right beside me, the chug-clack of the couplers between a pair of cars as a different train started and stopped. It was idling on the siding, awaiting a turn on the bustling westbound track. I could hear each distinct click of the various metal connector parts and the shuddering bang of the cars as if I was standing right beside the tracks, a mile and a river away.

We hear trains and traffic every day. Although there are many scenic, special, secret places in the woods and fields here at Northview, you can never forget for one second that you are just a few miles from the state capital. It is never quiet. The sky is never empty of at least a half a dozen jet trails and a propeller plane or two. When a thick storm or unusual cloud formation blows in, the noise is even more pronounced, because sounds are amplified by the clouds and seem to throw themselves around like a perverse sort of ventriloquist. As far as I am concerned it can clear off any time now, so I can sink back into blissful oblivion and stop looking under the swing set for errant trains.