Under lockdown, the speaker finds that the world has gone unusually quiet, and the poem is about learning to listen in that quiet. The short opening verse sets the scene: a walk that stops at the sound of a jet, as if a single engine overhead has become an event worth pausing for. The prose passage in the middle explains why. The narrow hollow where the speaker lives normally feels a little closed in, crowded with noise from highways, a quarry and local businesses. With that noise gone, the place feels more spacious. The speaker holds their breath to hear geese wingbeats at dusk, and even jokes about no longer envying animals that live underground for their soundproofing. The closing verse, about the hush in moss after rain, ends on the softest image of all. The mood is calm, attentive and quietly grateful. There is a hint of strangeness in how odd the silence is, but the speaker mostly marvels rather than worries.
Quarantine Walk — Summary
quarantine walk stopping at the sound of a jet
I can’t stop marveling at how quiet it’s become under lockdown. In normal times I find the close horizons of this narrow hollow in the hills a bit claustrophobic, but now that there’s so much less noise echoing around in it from adjacent highways, the nearby quarry, and factories and businesses in town, it feels more spacious. A pair of local Canada geese fly over at dusk and I hold my breath, listening to their wingbeats. I no longer envy animals that live underground their superior soundproofing.
last week’s rain that hush in the moss