It is not a quiet morning here on the bluff.
Last night’s storm blew the haze and humidity away, bringing a stiff north wind and choppy whitecaps on the big lake.
I haven’t been awake long, but already two sailboats have bounced past, sails full, hulls thumping the wave crests. A cardinal has hopped close with a chip-chip to peek in the screen. The hummingbird has been buzzing at the feeder. And two bald eagles have skimmed south on the breezy uplifts like stealth bombers.
It is easy to write about what we can see, but trying to convey the sounds is a distinct challenge. The leaves in the maple dervish in ecstasy to the gusts, their bodies swishing like so many petticoats. The waves themselves thrum in the ancient rhythm that pushes them ever coastward, and crashes them ashore with a distinct split-second of surprised gasp before sucking back out and under the next swell. The crows and jays jabber and scold as the eagle approaches, while the breeze tells them to hush their hyperbole.
I asked my husband the other day if the wind would sing aloud in the absence of obstacles. The trees stand before it to give it voice and treble. But, what if it were blowing in the middle of a vast desert? He said
even the grains of sand would joyfully lift to the wind’s call to give it speech.
Creation is rarely silent.
Even in the stillest of nights, the owls hunts, its prey screams. The mole’s paws scratch the dirt, and the deer snorts. In August, the cicada sings, and the cricket plays its dusky violin.
I think it is good to listen. Here is the still, small voice of God, lifted on the breeze of his creation, burrowed in the rabbit hole, slithered in dry leaves as the snake creeps. But, we rarely pay it much attention, going around with our ear buds, always blotting out the beauty of the music already all around us. Oh, what the music of heaven must be like!
What have you heard lately?
~J.A.P. Walton
This Side of the River 