I wished my old tree good morning as I rustled my way through its branches and set my back down on the slope that its trunk had been building. The sunlight had just begun to lift the dewdrops, slowly making room for the songleaves around them to transform the new morning breeze into the music of the spirits.
You cannot hear the first note of a jiyu's song. There is no grand entrance or catchy hook. It's more like a choir of thousands of distant voices all entering and exiting at different times with their pre-ordained notes. When you start to hear the song, you realize that it's been singing for a while, only your mind was not clear enough to focus on it. No mind has been or will ever be clear enough to know which of a jiyu's leaves sang first. Only the tree can know, and it will forever keep it secret.
