Singing in Dark Times: Improvisational Singing with Children Amidst Ecological Crisis

by Stephanie Schuurman-Olson

The Grass is Listening

The late June sun offers diffused light through aspen leaves above, leaving a speckled pattern on my bike helmet that rests in the long grass. The low hum of traffic nearby is occasionally interrupted by a pedestrian crossing alert signal, loudly buzzing dragonflies, or my four-year-old, Gretel. I sit on a paint-stained picnic blanket, my elbows resting on my knees, engaging as many of my senses as possible as I absorb the moment.

“Mom, Mom, Mom!” Gretel pulls on my jeans. “It’s crawling on me!” The tiniest of tiny lady bugs races up her vertical index finger and perches momentarily on her pink nail polish before spreading its wings to catch a ride on the breeze. My seven-year-old, Ingrid, who has been wandering nearby, approaches.

“I heard the strangest thing!” Ingrid says as she flops down beside me on the picnic blanket. “Have you ever noticed the way that the grass sings when it thinks you’re not listening?” She asks us to hold our bodies as still as possible. “Don’t make eye contact with it or it’ll know you’re listening!” We hesitate to do so much as breathe as the three of us look in myriad directions, straining our ears to hear the song of the grass.