California Redwoods at Night
The Redwoods stab on into the heavens; the air is clear; a chill swirls in the breeze; and few sounds are amplified against the black drop of night. The massively vaulted and expanded area in which you stand is rebuked by errie closeness. A spongy quiet covers the earth and rises to the ears with the impression of muffled space folded in on its self. Were it not for the occasional muted distant sounds, without light to revile the vast scenes, one would swear they were swaddled and rolled in a blanket. At night I think it is the swoopifish swallowing of large droops of condensation by the thirsty compost of the forest floor that one remembers most. If at your feet, you hear the event as distinct drops of water, though dripped into a sieve. For every three feet of distance from you, however, the splish suffers the loss of half its sounds, so that at fifteen or twenty feet the sound is effectively blended into that oppressive shish of the forest. The day cares for none of these things; though there, it is the splendor that moves one to roam and explore its secrets. But the night, it closes in on you, and you breathlessly listen, and to roam is the last thing you want to do, unless, of course, it is to leave its embrace behind you in the glow of your tail lights.
The Redwoods stab on into the heavens; the air is clear; a chill swirls in the breeze; and few sounds are amplified against the black drop of night. The massively vaulted and expanded area in which you stand is rebuked by errie closeness. A spongy quiet covers the earth and rises to the ears with the impression of muffled space folded in on its self. Were it not for the occasional muted distant sounds, without light to revile the vast scenes, one would swear they were swaddled and rolled in a blanket. At night I think it is the swoopifish swallowing of large droops of condensation by the thirsty compost of the forest floor that one remembers most. If at your feet, you hear the event as distinct drops of water, though dripped into a sieve. For every three feet of distance from you, however, the splish suffers the loss of half its sounds, so that at fifteen or twenty feet the sound is effectively blended into that oppressive shish of the forest. The day cares for none of these things; though there, it is the splendor that moves one to roam and explore its secrets. But the night, it closes in on you, and you breathlessly listen, and to roam is the last thing you want to do, unless, of course, it is to leave its embrace behind you in the glow of your tail lights.
