Solving the Mystery of the Klacking Trees
By Triple E, as told to Joycebelle
It was a silent night and I lay upon my bed listening to the silence. It was through this silence that I heard ever so faintly in the distance a "klacking." I opened my window next to my bed and felt the soft breeze which carried with it a fine mist to my face and a muted klacking to my ears. Ah, how inviting the night was.
In fact, it was so inviting that I rose, placed my flip flops on my feet and setout into the night in search of the distant klacking.
The rhythm was more distinct now; klack, klack-klack, klack, klack-klack-klack. It drew me to the woods in the back quarter of my yard. Then and there the mist became a gentle rain; pat, pitter-pat, pat-pat, pitter-pitter-pat-pat. The pitter-pats joined the klack-klacking in a most delightful syncopated rhythm:
Pat pitter-pat pat-pat pitter-pitter-pat
Klack klack-klack klack klack-klack-klack
As I ventured deeper into the woods, the klacking and pitter-patting intensified. I was mystified. I knew what was causing the pitter-patting sounds, but I could not imagine what was creating the klacking. It was both enchanting and exciting . . . mystical and magical.
I stopped next to a giant old maple tree, one I had climbed and played on in my youth. It was located at the outer limits of my backyard. One step further and I would be deep within the untamed woods where as a child I was never allowed to go without a grownup along to protect and guide me. But this old maple tree was in my yard and was my lifelong friend. So, I knew it well.
Oh, what a grand tree it was and what memories it brought back as I stood in the warm rain in the woods listening to the klacking and the pitter-patting in the otherwise silent night.
I grew sentimental and whispered just loud enough for the old tree and me alone to hear. "Old maple tree," I said, "As a kid I sure loved you . . . and I still do." I stretched my arms out around the old tree trunk and hugged it and pressed my head and heart into its bark.
In complete amazement, I heard for the first time the gurgling, no the giggling, well, a kind of gurgle-giggling of its sap leaping and bounding throughout its inner passageways.
"How marvelous!" I thought.
I listened intently.
The tree was very, very thirsty because the winter was an exceptionally dry and cold one. Tonight's warm rain was just what the old maple had been waiting for all winter long. Its roots were gobbling up the rain as fast as it pittered and patted on the ground. The sap rushed its nourishments to all of its many branches and to its outermost extremities. This rhythm added to the pitter-pitter-pat of the rain and the mysterious klack-klacking.
It was truly magnificent:
Pat pitter-pat pat pitter-pitter-pat
Gurgle gurgle-giggle gurgle giggle-gurgle-giggle
Klack klack-klack klack klack-klack-klack
Suddenly, a shock of amazement shot through by body as I bolted away from the tree. I had just heard distinctly and irrefutably something heretofore unimagined. The tree . . . the tree . . . the tree . . . had, of all things, burped. Yes, it burped!
I put my ear to its bark again and listened more.
Yes, again, I heard all the gurgling and giggling of the sap running throughout the tree and then there was another, a very clear . . . burp.
It was then I realized that the burping was absolutely and undeniably the origin of the tree's klacking; for every time the tree burped, the bark of the tree bulged a little, cracked a little and klacked a little.
I now stood back and listened to the entire woods, and I could hear it plainly in all of the trees.
Oh, what a rhythm in the night:
Pat pitter-pat pat pitter-pitter-pat-pat
Gurgle gurgle-giggle gurgle giggle-gurgle-giggle
Burp burrrr-rup burp buuurrrr-rup burp-pppp
Klack klack-klack klack klack-klack-klack
So, whenever it is very quiet, and a southern breeze flows through the trees bringing a warm rain after a freezing cold night, listen . . . and you, too, might hear the symphony of the burping trees.
PS: Oh . . . and I almost forgot to tell you that I'm sure I heard the old maple tree in the outer limits of my backyard sigh ever so slightly that night, "I love you, too."
Copyright 2007, E & J Edelbrock - All rights Reserved
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