You, Here

1

Absolute silence.

But no. It takes a moment for the ears to lose their inability to hear. A moment to disperse the sirens, the blaring horns, the constant human chatter, the unending simmer of sprawl, houses upon houses and buildings upon buildings and roads crossing roads, buzz and bump and blather, cacophony never ending. The ears become deaf. Cauliflower ears boxed useless by NOISE.

A moment of sitting still here. Just a moment, and the ears shyly begin to open again. Deafness dissolves. And there, the faint hum of insects in the grass. The chatter of an irritated squirrel. The caw of a crow and then all its brothers. The mewling of a cat bird in the bush, fooling you. The burping of bullfrogs encircling the pond. The odd trilling, almost prehistoric, of sand cranes in the field beyond the trees—and if you listen to the breeze in the tree tops, you’ll notice that it makes a different sound depending on the tree. The tall pines shush as they wave from side to side. The walnut tree with its rows of thin leaves on a long stem, softly rustle one against the other. The willows bend into the breeze, swing like a woman’s skirts, and sound almost like moving water. 

Sit still a while longer, ears open now in wonder, and you will hear how the world is filled with music. Next, your skin begins to feel that same breeze, its tickle and caress and glancing kiss, and your eyes widen to a thousand, no, a million shades of light and shadow, of a rainbow of color, even there where you once saw only green, brown, gray. 

A thrill runs through your body, head to toe, and you must move, must move, rise to walk the land, sensing the slight inclines and dips in the earth, the occasional hard edge of stone beneath, the soft spots where rodents have tunneled unseen, your step sinking slightly where below, life there, too, teems in constant flow. Tall grasses brush against your shins, and your fingertips touch the tops of the grasses lightly, feeling the wave pass through your body, you, the grass, you, the wind, you, the earth, you, the hum of the insects and the chatter of the squirrels and the ancient trilling of the cranes, you, the earth crumbling where you tunnel through to emerge again, you, whole.