This is Bird Note. Poet Claire Womun Holmes' work focuses on nature and the environment.

So when she was at the Raggedale Writers Residency north of Chicago,

it's no surprise she spent a lot of time exploring the outdoors.

Which is a beautiful residency.

The buildings back up onto like 50 acres or so of prairie and wetlands. I think it adjoins to 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. And as she walked around Claire was listening for

birds but there was something else she was hearing as well.

I was like, what is that?

Noah, is it like really windy? What does that sound? And I was like, oh, it's the highway.

There's like this beautiful. It's the highway.

like this beautiful, beautiful nature area and there's a highway right behind it.

Highways are something I generally tune out

because I like I live in an urban area.

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, like it's always there.

Claire's 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 outrunable.

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.

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