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Claire Wahmanholm: You Can Always Hear the Highway
A sound “like a strong wind” that competes with the birds
© Jen Goellnitz
Poet Claire Wahmanholm's work focuses on nature and the environment. As she was walking around a nature preserve north of Chicago, Claire was listening for birds but realized there was something else she was hearing: the ever-present hum of a nearby highway. “When you're trying deliberately to hear something else you really notice it,” she says. That experience inspired this poem:
YOU CAN ALWAYS HEAR THE HIGHWAY
beneath the Eastern Phoebe. It hums alongside the Hermit Thrush
and Indigo Bunting. It is almost like a river but it is not a river.
It is not out-runnable. There are moments when the Marsh Wrens die
down, and the highway fills them like the blood in your ears.
There are no real lulls. You could call the highway a zipper
because of the way it buzzes above the Ruby-crowned Kinglet
and the Willow Flycatcher. You could call it a drone or a moan.
I have never heard a Vesper Sparrow or a Dark-eyed Junco.
A chickadee is hatching crisply from its egg, a Gray Catbird is ripping
a millipede from the meadow, but how would you know.
The highway’s sound is like a strong wind, or like a heavy curtain
being dragged along the ground. It is louder than the alarm call
of any bird, louder than the noise a Barn Swallow makes when it is
being eaten. I may never hear a Brown Thrasher, a Pine Warbler,
a Rose-breasted Grosbeak, a Common Yellowthroat.
There are 160,955 miles of highway in America.
BirdNote®
Claire Wahmanholm: You Can Always Hear the Highway
Written by Mark Bramhill
Mark Bramhill: This is BirdNote.
Poet Claire Wahmanholm's work focuses on nature and the environment. So, when she was at the Ragdale writers' residency north of Chicago, it's no surprise she spent a lot of time exploring the outdoors.
Claire Wahmanholm: It's just a beautiful residency. The buildings back up onto, like, 50 acres or so of prairie and wetlands. I think it adjoins two nature preserves. The Skokie River runs through it, and walking is like a big part of my poetic practice, and so every day I was taking these long kind of rambles through this like beautiful nature area.
Mark Bramhill: And as she walked around, Claire was listening for birds. But there was something else she was hearing:
Claire Wahmanholm: I was like, what is that noise? Is it like, really windy? What is that sound? And I was like, oh, it's the highway.
[Tires singing on the highway]
There's like this, beautiful, beautiful nature area, and there's a highway right behind it. Highways are something I generally tune out, because I live in an urban area and the noise of industry is kind of my ambient soundtrack. But when you're trying deliberately to hear something else you really notice it. And I was like, oh my gosh, it's always there.
Mark Bramhill: Claire’s experience inspired this poem:
[Solemn string music fades in]
Claire Wahmanholm:
YOU CAN ALWAYS HEAR THE HIGHWAY
beneath the Eastern Phoebe. It hums alongside the Hermit Thrush
and Indigo Bunting. It is almost like a river but it is not a river.
It is not out-runnable. There are moments when the Marsh Wrens die
down, and the highway fills them like the blood in your ears.
There are no real lulls. You could call the highway a zipper
because of the way it buzzes above the Ruby-crowned Kinglet
and the Willow Flycatcher. You could call it a drone or a moan.
I have never heard a Vesper Sparrow or a Dark-eyed Junco.
A chickadee is hatching crisply from its egg, a Gray Catbird is ripping
a millipede from the meadow, but how would you know.
The highway’s sound is like a strong wind, or like a heavy curtain
being dragged along the ground. It is louder than the alarm call
of any bird, louder than the noise a Barn Swallow makes when it is
being eaten. I may never hear a Brown Thrasher, a Pine Warbler,
a Rose-breasted Grosbeak, a Common Yellowthroat.
There are 160,955 miles of highway in America.
[Sounds heard:
Hermit Thrush song;
Ruby-crowned Kinglet song;
Common Yellowthroat song]
Mark Bramhill: You can hear lots more poetry about birds on our website, BirdNote dot org. I’m Mark Bramhill.
###
Producer: Mark Bramhill
Managing Editor: Jazzi Johnson
Managing Producer: Conor Gearin
Content Director: Jonese Franklin
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Eastern Phoebe ML426779621 recorded by Jeff Ellerbusch, Hermit Thrush ML100857 recorded by Wil Hershberger, Ruby-crowned Kinglet ML49741 recorded by Kevin J. Colver, and Common Yellowthroat ML94345 recorded by Wil Hershberger.
Music: Honeyed Words (String Quartet) by Ligeti Quartet & Anna Meredith
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2024 BirdNote April 2024
Narrator: Mark Bramhill
ID# WahmanholmC-01-2024-04-26 WahmanholmC-01
Mark Bramhill
Writer NarratorSights & Sounds
