Hoppers of the Grass
Tick tick tick go the grasshoppers on the side of the trail. Over three different days, I hear them talk at me - or rather, talk amongst themselves and I happen to be here to listen.
At first, I think the it’s pine needles making this odd noise but I’ve spent some time in pine forests though and have never heard this sound. So I stand still and do all the things humans do when alert: swivel my head, hold my breath, scan the horizon, put my hands behind my ears. Nothing is taking wing and there’s little movement other than the wind.
A flash of insight from the deep part of my brain puts it together and I know the forest isn’t creating this hum, only supporting the creatures who do. ‘Who do’ sounds like hoodoo, which is the environment in which this chorus is harmonizing. It’s Southern Utah and all of us are standing in the shadows of sandstone towers with multiple waists and flaking columns and elephant-skin skirts.
“Perhaps they’re reluctant to take the stage. Instead, they’re using the percussion of their exoskeletons to give the monologue from behind the curtain. ”
It’s in the detritus of those hoodoos that the pine trees have sent their roots. It is that soil, broken by the wind and fractured away by ice, that enough fungus has grown to harness the nutrients that formed a creche just large enough for a seed to sigh, relax, and crack open its protective shell.
It is in this improbable forest that these thousands of grasshoppers are hiding between the branches and singing. Perhaps they’re reluctant to take the stage. Instead, they’re using the percussion of their exoskeletons to give the monologue from behind the curtain.
Are they chatting? Are they admiring? Are they attracting? When they tire, do others pick up the melody? These ancient insects have been pests and plagues and destroyers, but on this day they are making lovely music.
As I hike, run, and bike past, I say hello, hoppers of the grass because after a few hours on the trail you tend to speak to things that don’t listen. When I tired of that, I timed my steps to their beat.
Tick tick tick, went the grasshoppers, these inhabitants of the Fairyland of colored stone of this trail’s namesake. They spoke to me, I replied. They made their noise and I followed their beat. I missed them when I returned to the campground, I’d grown accustomed to their background noise.
Now whenever I see one I’ll think of those few days I spent the glow of old stone, with the crunch of erosion beneath my feet, in a desert that could only barely be imagined.
Inspired by events in Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah
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