Invisible Scenes

Posted on August 24, 2005 in Neighborhood

I hear scenes that I cannot see. Through my window whose blinds are pulled down. The roll of skateboards over a jump that the new neighbor boy has fashioned. His shouted conversation with his friend, mostly consisting of names, commands, brags, and analyses of the last jump. A grass trimmer’s high buzz. A circular saw’s cut sounds to me like sand given the power to sing. Both cut plants or their corpses. Now, for a few quick taps, the pinlike bursts of a hammer. The crows which summered here do not speak.

Even close to me there are sounds. My old friends: Fiona pawing in her litter box, the computer, the air conditioner, and the overhead fan. If I were struck blind, I would miss sight. This other sense that allows me to hear the whispers, the cries, the moans, the laughter, and the songs of the world — I might miss as much or maybe more.