TheBanyanTree: Morning Sky

[NancyIee at aol.com]

As usual, the dogs woke me just before sunrise. I believe they get together 
to let me know that there's light outside and it's time to get up. So, I put 
them out and watch the horizon turn from indigo to a faint mauve. The air is 
still where I stand, though the tops of the pine trees are swaying with some 
vigor. 

The sunrise is marred by low, scudding clouds that don't burn pink but remain 
grey. They move in rapidly, dimming the color and the light. And, then I hear 
the  sound. At first I think it is someone running a mower or chain saw, but 
that's not quite it, either. More like a distant train, though it's keening in 
the treble; too high for a train. An alto violin?  It has that sort of 
vibrato.

Of course, the dogs hear it too, and are responding with yapping of their 
own. I walk away from the house, out where I can hear the sound more clearly. A 
bolt of lightning comes like a snake's tongue from cloud to . . . the microwave 
tower a mile away.

This is no place to be with an incoming storm, I think. But, I stand a moment 
more to listen, as the sound lifts and whines eerily into the grayling 
morning. I focus on the distant tower and listen as the sound wans and ebbs with the 
intensity of each  gust of wind.

The sound comes from the tower, the guy wires vibrating as the eastern wind 
rips through treetops.  On the ground, the morning is still. A hundred feet up, 
the incoming hurricane rips across the sky and makes the guy wires sing. I 
can hear it a mile or more away.  I wonder what my neighbors in its shadow must 
hear this morning.

Eerie music.


NancyLee