Shimmering Threads

In the vastness of the Rocky Mountains, there is a place I have loved dearly for the past 50+ years, where the wind has not yet chosen its body. Wandering across the peaks and valleys, always in a liminal space, it bumps up against the leaves of an aspen grove, finding a temporary home amongst these delicate skins of one of the oldest and largest living organisms on earth. In the wake of this collaboration, the leaves quake as they twist and turn, bumping against each other until the wind moves on, threading its way to the next grove. This is what silence sounds like when it learns how to breathe through leaves. Each flicker is a pulse of listening in a language without grammar. The wind conducts this forest and invites us to join it. Not all rhythms need counting. Not all songs need notes. Some music is made just by holding the space between sound and its memory. When the oldest and largest trees exhale across centuries in our presence, we are invited to still ourselves and listen. The wind remembers where it came from and invites us to remember too.