BETTER THAN HEARSAY Small Sounds in a Large World

THE MOUNTAINS - There may be nothing better than a long, pre-spring rain that, minus a few degrees, could have been smothering snow.

It is mostly quiet at my house, on a dead end road down the mountain from Windham, making it easier to hear what a dear friend once wrote.

I remembered her words, last Saturday, when the clouds hung low and Nature was simultaneously in motion and in suspended animation.

Her name is Bonnie and she passed away a year-and-a-half ago on a sunny summer day, not at all like this past weekend.

Small, early springish tributaries formed as the wetness fell steadily and soothingly while in other covered spots, icy fingers held on tight.

But any day with any warmth is worth venturing out into in these high hills, where 40 degrees, in late winter, feels like a heat wave.

I could hear raindrops - splattering against hickory tree branches that had snapped off in heavy winds two nights earlier - and gently pattering on ground leaves from the previous autumn turned gray.

The windstorm had made it a struggle to keep my old country house toasty, particularly the wood floors that behave like perfect wind tunnels, so it was good to get my tootsies into the mild air.

The woods were little symphonies with no greenery to soften the raindrops playing so I listened to their mysterious orchestration.

Bonnie said it better, I believe, in a piece she titled, “And I Sit,” which goes like this…“sparse waters trickle deep in shadowed places, catching small pools of silken essence amongst the dry and boney rocks.

“You hear life in the music of moving waters. I listen for the life, thick nectar dripped through from more subtle realms, a small sound in a large world.”

It’s the “small sound in a large world” phrase that strikes me deepest, bringing to mind how Bonnie seemed to think of herself.

I won’t deny I miss the girl I met when I was 19 years old. She, believe it or not, stopped to pick me up hitchhiking back when it was still possible to stick out your thumb and get a free ride to wherever.

We became close, talking about everything under the stars and beyond and I admit it it would be awfully nice to still do so.

But it also sounds kind of silly, saying that, knowing that there isn’t really anywhere for her to have gone. Where else would that be?

So I chatter away and it isn’t the same but it isn’t vapid either, and I put on her favorite TV show, “Svengoolie,” when it plays on Saturday nights.

Death is stranger than anything in life, the way we simply vanish and how it leaves us speechless and I listen to the small sounds in a large world.