Whispering Grass

I love the sound of the wind as it ruffles the leaves in a tree; it can sound like the sea, the way it [the sea] whips across the top of the waves, catching its breath on the tips of waves full to bursting with glee as they race toward the shore. It’s a sound from my childhood.

At night on ‘Mangarouhi’ (childhood farm) when the wind played reckless hide and seek in the pine trees at the back of my little bach (New Zealand name given to a self-contained studio usually separate from the main house and often used as a guest place away from the main house).

It often sounded like the tune-up before an orchestral performance. No apparent rhyme or reason for the sounds it was making but when the performance began, it all made sense.

The winds in the trees behind my bach on Mangarouhi were like that. When it was windy, it was loud and sent me into sleep like the proverbial lullaby. Some nights it was comforting beyond words. There was a pattern to it, something approaching a pastoral legato passage. There are no words to describe the easy sleep it induced throughout my teen years. I miss it.

There are trees here in the Bay of course, big ones, blue gums, but they have a different rhythm. Funny that isn’t it. The different sounds of a different time. They signpost our lives, well, mine at least. How about you? Can you remember?