My dad often asked me this question: "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, is there any sound?" Finally, I came up with a reply. Here is my answer:
Unheard Sound
By Adrienne Fiona Clark
March 2003
Silence in the wood.
Alone.
No sound of footsteps
No cracking twig
No living life to befoul
The beauty of the loneness.
Ancient newborn
Old, but young in the eyes of Creation
Tallest in the forest
A tree stood.
It knew its time had come.
(It had cracks in its bark to prove its point)
And it chose that moment to fall
Defying the very defiance of gravity
It yearned to touch the ground.
Writhing stretching twisting
Tearing out the very roots of the earth
It tottered
tipped
trembled,
Tremors shook its every fiber,
Tremors shook its every fiber,
A leaf twitched...
And then slowly
Oh so slowly
It tiptoed through the air
To kiss the ground.
And it made no noise.
It created pulsing waves of air
Radiating into the universe
Moved by all its sheer force
And marvelous gentleness...
And there was no one there to hear it.
But somewhere in the cosmos,
Countless light years away,
A star shook and trembled
Because a tree fell in a forest
And there was no one to take in the sound.
I don’t know this though.
Another ancient newborn
Told me the story as I walked by,
With no cracking twigs
With no cracking twigs
And silence in the wood.
Then I was not alone,
For I myself was there as well.
But there is no sound
When a tree falls in the forest
And no one is there to hear it.
Then I was not alone,
For I myself was there as well.
But there is no sound
When a tree falls in the forest
And no one is there to hear it.
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