Sand dunes sing, but in an unexpected way. Perhaps you never expected sand dunes to sing. Or, one could imagine a rippling wind that strokes the sand, and this does happen, desert winds that hum across the land in caressing purrs and buffeting howls. Wind is involved in our dune song but it is not the accompaniment, rather it sets the stage. On these dunes, which are rare, both in number and accessibility, the sand is spherical and well-sorted. To sing, the dune must be freshly smoothened and lightly compressed by recent gales, the sand dry but not desiccated. Not all sands can sing.

It is said that our skin is the largest organ of our body. It is a thickness beyond a two dimensional surface, rather an interface, porous yet protective, durable but sensitive. Does this soft tissue keep us separate from the things around us or is it the way that we connect to and translate the world we inhabit? Perhaps both. Our fingertips desirous of texture. Goosebumps in reply to the cool messages of air and breeze. Sweat, a language of heat. As a boy I might splash away a hot afternoon in a desert lake until wrinkled and supersaturated not knowing that there might be any limit to what the world made available to absorb.

Leaves do the quietest of work. How close does one need to be to hear photosynthesis or the ultrasonic voices of plants? A sagebrush landscape is an ensemble of trillions that communicates in a language we won’t hear but also in a color unique to itself, the many leaves in an expanse of soft green, undulating through washes and up long bajadas without scale.

It is the rhythm, a certain cadence that wakes them. Tapping on hardpan. Bouncing off rocks. Dripping from waxy leaves. Penetrating desiccated soil, vibrations percolate downward as raindrops patter the surface which is hardened and cracked by months absent of precipitation.