The Past

Small light in the sky appearing suddenly between two pine boughs, their fine needles now etched onto the radiant surface and above this high, feathery heaven— Smell the air. That is the smell of the white pine, most intense when the wind blows through it and the sound it makes equally strange, like the sound of the wind in a movie— Shadows moving. The ropes making the sound they make. What you hear now will be the sound of the nightingale, Chordata, the male bird courting the female— The ropes shift. The hammock sways in the wind, tied firmly between two pine trees. Smell the air. That is the smell of the white pine. It is my mother's voice you hear or is it only the sound the trees make when the air passes through them because what sound would it make, passing through nothing?