Cottonwode: The riffle

The riffle is the sound of the shimmer. A cottonwood leaf waves to you; a whole tree shimmers at you; what you hear is a beautiful riffle.

A bit like those geese very low overhead by Cedar Lake in 1994. I instantly thought how my deaf tutor/tutee Jim was missing out on some things. For that matter a bit like the sound of a deaf crowd applauding.

Though I think it's a skiffle. But I'm Scottish. A skiffle is a Scottish riffle.

1994, 44.9572 -93.3254, no honking. flyfishingkat, “A Classic Turn Riffle Pt. 2-1-21-2012-Jeff Wilkins Fly Fishing,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1NbWHMMACM . Ole Stig Andersen, “Deaf applause,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOCcKZhlVx8. Skiffle and riffle: Wiktionary. Photo: Chris Licht, “Cottonwood leaf at Beecher Island near Wray, Colorado,” 23 July 2016, Wikimedia Commons, CC- BY-SA 4.0. Robert Wellman Campbell, "Cottonwode: The riffle," RSS Longa, 19 June 2025, public domain via CC0 1.0.