Sounds of Country––Sights for Sore Ears

“At the end of another awesome performance, the trees took a bough.”

c e hollis

Almost imperceptible on a warm morning in mid June. I listen with my eyes. It is a silky sound—a sweet and satiny sound like ribbons slipping in a girl’s hair or a careful finger touching the last ivory key of a piano’s pastorale piece. It is a rosebud unfurling its petals.

Deafening on a hot July night is the boom of the moon rising above the treeline of the farm. On Autumn evenings we see her boisterous laugh in gigantic orange guffaws. The noise is sparkling when the orb is a shimmery silver pearl. Still other nights we hear the moon rise like pale cream to the top of a pitcher of fresh milk.

White puffs of cottony clouds drifting, changing, moving across the wide expanse of azure sky. That is a sound worth seeing! It is a breathless fun noise like white paint rolling onto a blue wall.

Raindrops beading up on iris leaves are musical and stunning to the eye that can catch the notes. They shimmer into your ear’s eye then pausing for effect make a sparkly-diamond, deeply resonating echo on your soul.

Fireflies are distant clacking of bamboo wind-chimes. They are staccato rhythms, silently tapping a beat that you hear in your head. Off–on, off–on, tip-tap-tapping in the dark lush treetops.

A tulip closes his mouth at night and in the morning warmth, he relaxes with the softest sweetest sigh ever seen. By noon if you pause and lean close you’ll see The Hallelujah Chorus sung loud and clear.

A thunderous racket is made by the crape myrtle blossoms popping their way from their buds like chicks from eggshells to chatter at the beaming sun. Keep your eyes open so you’ll not miss the cacophony.

Barbed wire struggles to hold up fenceposts. You’ll see the pulling stretching groan if you are on one side of it and notice its sharp, thin humming if you are on the other. In a storm you’ll find its strands crying shrill and piercing like Munch’s Silent Scream.

Spider webs play a soft melody woven of silky harp-like notes along the fences in soft fog-lit morning light.

In the pasture coreopsis and Back-eyed Susans, cone flowers, and wild phlox nod in the heat and wind keeping time like metronomes. Can you see their songs? I can. They sing of summer and their voices are full and free like children pumping their arms and legs and soaring on swings.

Summer green grasses grow so fast you can hear the sight. It pushes and pulses like conversations around a dinner table. Zinnias gives a shout! Flowerbeds are full of jib-jabbering hubbub like a room filled with cousins spending a holiday.

You may be surprised what sounds you’ll see in the country or what sights you will hear! Open your eyes and—shhhhhh—listen.

But as it is written: Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for those who love Him!

1 Corinthians 2:9