Balmorhea Sounds

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Stretched out on my back in the grass beside San Solomon Springs pool in Balmorhea State Park, I take in the world's biggest breath and then let out the world's biggest sigh. I pull my straw hat down over my face and close my eyes. I take inventory of the sounds:

• the hum of vehicles on the highway beyond the park
• the splish-splash of kicking legs
• the relentless winding up and fading out of harmonizing locusts
• birds querying and answering amidst the trees
• the hurried patter of wet feet, the boing-yoing-yoing of a spring board and a bass thump-splash as the fat kid hits the water (I peeked.)
• "If you want to clear your mask, honey, just press the top, lift the bottom and blow out your nose ... that's it! You did it!"
• the shuffling of ice in a cooler
• the steady slap, slap, slap of a football being tossed around

I open my eyes, and through my loosely woven straw hat I see a bird soaring directly overhead. I shut one eye to focus and I watch her drift from one straw picture frame into the next until she disappears from my sight.