Something I Have Learned

When you live in a forest - look upward if you want to know what a sound is, or what the weather is.  Not at the sky. But at the three tops.  I made myself some coffee and went out to the front verandah to take in the scenery.  I heard what sounded like a mountain waterfall.  I don't live on a mountain.  It kept rushing.  What was it?  Trying to figure out this sound, I listened intently.  Then I decided it was heavy traffic on the road below.  But that was not it either.  No traffic was going by.  What else could it be?  I thought again.  It sounds like a river rushing. There is no river near me; I am at a lake. All around me was peace and serenity; tiny birds flitting from branch to branch, everything standing still; yet this roaring sound kept my attention.  The massive cedars and fir trees stood quietly tall all around me.  Then I looked upward as I saw an eagle fly past.  There, at the top of the trees, swaying and swirling.  The sound I heard was the wind in a forest.  Being a stubble jumper, unaccustomed to a forest, this sound was foreign to me.  So now I know - when I hear that sound again, I can be sure it is windy. Lucky for the little birds and myself, that wind does not reach us down here on the ground in our forest.