The silent singing of trees

     This morning when I took my walk, I was aware, as I almost always am, of the natural world that lives around and above the houses in my neighborhood.  After last night's rain, the first good, soaking rain we've had in several weeks, I could hear the silent singing in the grasses and the bushes and the trees.  Like a kind of needle-less acupuncture, it touches a center in my spirit that makes me very happy.
     The cats and dogs I meet on my walk always make me happy and the squirrels make me laugh, but the singing in the trees takes me into a larger, more ancient world that's going to be here long after I am gone.  I'm privileged now to be part of it, to be protected and uplifted by it, to be delighted by its body -- the giant trunks of the oaks, the branches that stretch across the street to the opposite sidewalk, all the shades of green which have been freshened by the rain -- that allows its voice to sing out so strongly.
     The singing of the trees goes all the way up to the sky, which has its own singing that I can not hear because it transcends any ability I have.  But even its silence, which is perhaps the root of its sound, takes me out of myself.  The sky is not as dramatic at nine in the morning as it will be when the sun goes down, yet it can still make a dramatic impression on my heart.  It engulfs me as I walk along.
    If I can get away with a little more imagery, I would say that the sky is the church in which the chorus of the trees, bushes and grasses sing. And the root of their song is the earth, which for the most part is so buried under concrete and tarmac it's inaccessible.  But where the trees, bushes and grasses are, the earth is allowed to be. 
     Poor earth!  The developers have rented it the little breathing space it has because no one would buy houses in their development without some vegetation.  But this morning I don't want to think along those lines.  I'm just grateful for what remains -- for what exists -- and I rejoice that no one can pave over the sky or make portions of it into private property.