I live in an area of the world where you can actually hear the leaves when they hit the ground. Having recently moved here from the desert Southwest, I’ve never experienced this phenomenon in my life. Fifty-foot-tall Cottonwoods, Alders, and Hemlocks are what I’m surrounded by, with a few towering Big-leaf Maples. It is so quiet here—the forest is quiet, the neighbors are quiet, the road is quiet (it’s kind of fabulous)—that the noise the leaves make as they touch the ground can almost be described as crashing. They aren’t coming down in bunches this time of year, of course, but a few yellow ones drift down every time a breeze ruffles the branches.
Flitter, flutter, flitter; and the leaf lands with a plop. Flutter, flitter, flutter; and the leaf lands with a noise resembling a crash. How is that even possible? I experience it, it’s right before my eyes and ears, but I still don’t believe it.
One more thing in this extraordinary world over which to marvel.
Carolyn Kay Hanson 