Two Sounds

I woke up to two sounds in the night.

The first sound was a crash, an explosion like one from the movies. It started with an ear-splitting crack and then grew like a roar, deep and throaty. My head came up off the pillow and I oriented myself. The sound came from the west and slightly north. After some silence I sat up to listen more. Nothing. I got up and went downstairs to peer out the window. Nothing but the dark rain slapping shiny streets and cars and charging down in columns from the roof.

What in the world could that have been? Nobody else seems to be disturbed. The television glows drearily in the window across the street. It's four in the morning. The blast was framed in silence. No scream, no laughter, no collapsing of structures. "If a tree
falls in the forrest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" could be twinned by "If a sound falls in the city and no one is around to see it, did it really happen?"

Drops carried away the stubborn white banks by the snowflake. It's Easter morning. Tender tulip shoots pushed up old dry leaves like tin freshly canned. Cold naked trees held tightly wrapped presents out on their fingertips. They were waiting, waiting silently in the falling rain. They must have shuddered like me at the sound of the explosion.

Upstairs, sheets covered my shoulders, my eyes grew dim and I returned to sleep.

The second sound was not like the first sound. It was still very dark when I began to hear it, but bright as the sunrise the sound rose in the night. Once again my head came up off the pillow. It was a choir of birds bursting and scattering melodies in the treetops. Today is Easter, the beautiful victory of light over darkness, melody over silence, and life over death.