How fortunate I am to be surrounded by pine woods on three sides of our Shenandoah Valley home. There is something restless and mysterious about the sound of wind in the pines—its soughing can be almost eerie, especially at night, with a full moon. In a heavy wind, the trees bend and sway, branches creaking and sometimes cracking under the strain. I’ve always loved the opening lines to The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes:
The wind was a torrent of darkness, among the gusty trees.
The moon was a ghostly galleon, tossed upon cloud seas.
My friend April Moore had a particularly lovely reflection on her EarthConnection blog today called “Wind in the Woods.” The woods on her ridge are more hardwood than pine, but I recognized the images she depicted immediately as she began, “The morning wind blows cold. But deep in the woods, I find refuge from it.” Read the rest of April’s piece here.
Does the sound of wind in the trees soothe or calm you? Or do you find it makes you restless or even frightened?
“Desert Canvas” by Karen R. Sanderson
The aspens in NM…it’s like a tickly whisper, if that helps. 🙂
Aspens have smaller leaves than their cousins the cottonwoods, but they catch the breeze as easily as cottonwoods. I love the sound of the slightest breeze in our cottonwoods. To me it sounds like the beginnings of summer rain.
I tried to leave a comment over on April’s blog, but I got a weird error/warning message. Anyway, hers is a lovely blog of imagery – I could hear and see the trees. How I miss the forests of NM and the southwest, and I miss the lush green hills and trees of the east coast. We don’t have much landscape up here that is ripe with trees, just spots here and there.
Thanks for these wonderful reflections, Karen. I’ve sent April an email about the error message. I get an error message when I leave a comment too, but when I go back, the comment is there anyway.
I’d love to be such a keen observer of nature that I could distinguish the sound of wind in various landscapes. I do know the sound in a pine forest is different than in a deciduous forest, but that’s about it. The aspen forests above Santa Fe are spectacular visually, but I haven’t concentrated on listening to the wind there. Next time…