Sounds of a summer's night

(Meadow, woods and pond at Eastern Neck State Park on Maryland's Eastern Shore a few hours before sunset)

The crickets are active tonight. And while they are charming, their first appearance (or rather audi-ance? Do we have a word for something that comes into hearing, comparable to something that comes into view?)… And while they are charming, their first presence is always a bit melancholy, for it signals that we have turned the corner on summer.

Peepers come out in spring. Lightning bugs in early summer. Crickets right around summer's peak. They are hardy fellows, strumming their rustic melodies deep into fall. Tonight, they are vigorously thrumming their familiar, melodic undercurrent that forms the baseline of all mid-summer’s night lullabies.

It is around this time of summer, too, that another sound emerges. I do not know its source or origin, but it is best described as the sound of the forest breathing. It has only two notes, one for breathing in, another for breathing out. It is slow, steady, full, as if all the trees of my woods were breathing in sync.

In its constant, deep rhythm it is somewhat comforting, as if the earth itself were urging us, guiding us, to relax. As it breathes, so should we, slowing our breath to match nature's, joining our spirits to the spirit of the wilds.

And then there is that rattle noise, like someone is shaking a baby’s toy, off and on, calling desperately, insistently, throughout the better part of the early night. But it is blessedly short-lived, outlasted by the soothing blanket of cricket song.

Occasionally, an owl will chime in, announcing his presence and staking his claim to territory, mate or food.

No wonder so many white noise machines have settings for the sounds of late summer nights. (And no wonder so many also have settings for the soft rumble of trains. The latter are a rhythmic, mechanical echo of the former. Gentle, constant, hypnotic.)

There is a vibrant enchantment stirring beyond our windows on summer's nights that we can witness only as eavesdroppers. Still, as we go to bed, it gently drapes us in its constant cacophony of desire, delight and renewal.

Thank God for summer.