The Sense of Sound

THE SENSE OF SOUND
JOE PANCAKE LOVED to sit in his backyard and listen to the sound of the moon crossing the sky. The full moon, especially, he enjoyed, for he particularly loved the combination of sight and sound.
The sun too, and the stars as well; and even the planets: the gentle, harmonic hissings of the celestial bodies. But the moon--the moon was a special gift, moving slowly across the sky from east to west, but also, even more subtlely, from west to east. Joe Pancake loved the dual nature of the moon.
Many of Joe’s friends said that they couldn’t hear the moon’s journey. But Joe would wink back, as if to say, "I understand; I used to not be able to admit it either. But that’s OK. I understand. Just take your time."
And they’d give Joe a look back that said--to him–-"Thanks." Or sometimes, "What the hell are you talking about?"
Joe had a hard time reading other people’s minds.
But other people had a hard time reading his too.
With the corn, he had no problem at all finding a commonality. Everyone can hear the corn. Especially on hot sunny days, right after watering. The crackling of the leaves and the stalks was so loud that often Joe had to use earplugs on his walks through the fields. Or even when he walked beside them.
The human body was a different matter. Certainly, he could hear the workings of his own body: the breathing, the heartbeat, even the hair and the fingernails and the toenails--their slow rush to escape from the enclosures of skin and flesh; and at times, with a bit more of an effort, he could even hear the general replacement of his cells: the skin drying and wrinkling; aging; and the decay of certain organs: the liver and the kidneys, the pancreas; the lungs, the heart, the brain. The mind.
All of these beautiful sounds he could hear with a clarity that rose above the everyday resignations.
But other people’s bodies demanded a much greater attention. They were harder to hear, harder to listen to. To be sure, in the proper setting he could hear them, perhaps even almost as well as his own. And when he did this, after having blocked out the outside noises--the excess, the distractions, the clutter of human civilization and culture and urban sprawl--Joe could sometimes hear the intimate sounds of another human being--another human being growing and aging like himself and, hence, becoming ever more beautiful and sublime. Granted, it was hard to do, and it didn’t happen very often. But when it did, when another human being could click into his own system and be able to block out the same clutter, at the same time, in the same place, for the same reason, and the connection became complete in the present tense--the Now--and when it was understood for what it was, in the language that goes beyond the rudimentary senses, Joe Pancake could feel a small piece of contentment.