Phosphorescent Flute, Sleepy Hollow

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 Shakuhachi Improv 3

With night moving in and the batteries in my Edirol recorder dying, here are some final impressions before leaving Sleepy Hollow (see images below). Having tried valiantly to capture images of fireflies and one last image of the moon through the haunted woods of the area, I decided that I had tarried long enough in Tarrytown!

As I sped my way northwards towards Poughkeepsie, the glowing presence of the moon pursuing me at every turn of the road offered little comfort as cars in apparent great haste repeatedly pushed me past the posted 40 MPH to well beyond 60 miles per hour – the locals evidently knew the twists and turns of the shadowy two-lane highway better than as we raced along in tandem through the dark!

With a shudder I suddenly realized how Ichabod Crane must have felt as he travelled this same route, especially when a lone rider on a motorcycle appeared directly behind me from out of nowhere and pushed me even faster, his single headlamp glaring in my rearview mirror! Moments later, on a short stretch of twisting roadway where passing was all but impossible, the motorcycle went roaring past at over 8o miles per hour.

A sidelong glance of the shadowy figure as he flew past confirmed my worst fear: the rider had no helmet! 

Read The Legend of Sleepy Hollow here.

Read more about Washington Irving’s Sunnyside Estate here.

As described in Irving’s strange tale, the fireflies in the woods where I had played in that shadowed glade by the brook were great in number and like none that I had ever seen before! Their phosphorescent lightshow left an indelible and magical afterimage in my imagination!