Monday, April 23, 2012

A Convergence Of Sound



This morning, early, the dawn was alive with a convergence of sound, from the ground to the sky, and from every other discernable direction.  It began with a whisper before the light had even settled in upon the land, but soon came with its full strength, a resounding chorus, just as the sun began to peek inquisitively over the eastern ridge.    

A woodpecker knocking on a tree kept a heartbeat like a solitary drummer on a single block of wood.  The Meadowlark joined in with its flutelike whistles.  Mourning doves and their low, sad, whoo-oo, hoo, hoo, hoo.  Robins calling cheerily, cheerily, cheer-up, cheer-up.  Finch, and their canary-like warble.  Quail even, with a loud ca-ca-cow, or ca-caah-co, and their clucking whit-whit.  Wrens with that distinctive bubbling chatter; the Sparrows chimed in with whistles and trills, and their sweet, high tseep’s.  They all contributed to the surreal, and the profound.  The Bluebird’s soft warble, it’s phew, and somewhat harsher chuck.  The Blackbird’s kseeee or ksheek.  The Western Tanager’s pit-err-ick, pit-err-ick, like the soft, illusory sound of a lone percussive woodwind.

All these creatures, conspiring together in a magnanimous and harmonious effort to teach the world to sing, to lead the way in song, and we were fittingly hypnotized.  You might say we were mesmerized, not only by the effort, but by the very nature of the melodious composition itself.  A Mormon Tabernacle Choir of feathered friends, a congregate of winged songsters in an outdoor aviary perched on risers at least a thousand rows deep into the trees. 
It was the sound of pleasant smiles on a million euphoric faces.    

Two geese flew by just overhead honking like geese will do, as if stuck in early morning traffic on the way to get their coffee.

Coyotes off in the distance barked in arousing recognition of the exceptional aural presentation, rare as the sun is bright.  They hooted, howled, yipped, and yapped, like puppies on a new mowed lawn.

The sweet sound of nature was joined unapologetically by the mechanical grinding of one solitary logging truck off in the distance winding its way slowly down the mountain; it’s motor somehow complimenting the arrangement, rather than diminishing it, like the rumbling of a kettledrum behind the clarinets, flutes, and strings.  Harmonizing, blending, as it were, the sacred with the profane.