As a tiny carillon, these drops of water...
Then suddenly, unexpectedly, you become aware of hearing the repeated trickle of drops of water, and it is not clear for the moment whether you saw them as well, or whether it was enough to hear them to imagine you had seen them, crystalline, cold and merry, minute, numerous, limpid, on the surface of the soft dark moss: a kind of carillon, minute and purposeful, its bells dispersed at various levels of the rock, ringing in no apparent order, merry yet hidden, speaking on the earth’s surface; and you are compelled to stop, to be silent if you happen to be speaking; but not to the point where you would go down on your knees. Quite simply, you fall silent, and perhaps you smile as you do at those memories that light up in the darkness of the mind – sometimes.
And shadows of sheep, more in the manner of ghosts...
In other parts, the meadows utter speech even more remote and marvelous: it comes from kinds of enclosures where a solitary poplar stands guard and a few mulberry trees form rounded shapes, and where I can still see ten or so sheep silhouetted in a group against the light before darkness falls. What is it that creates such perfect harmony between these few animals, the tall grass and the oil of evening? What is the meaning of the huddled group over there in the distance, silent and almost motionless? They are docile beasts, domesticated even (but more in the manner of ghosts than of cats and dogs), essentially very distant themselves, docile, almost eternal, almost absent, friends of the bare earth, of the dust and the stones – as if the only ram they really followed were the moon. Old like the stones, themselves wooly rocks
[…]
sheepfold vespers in these hidden corners of the countryside; the lesson once recited and understood, the candleflame is snuffed and the gentle shaft of sleep driven deep in the heart of things.
~ Philippe Jaccottet, from Landscapes with Absent Figures
...
Some bell and sheep sounds...
* Bells & Winter Festivals of Greek Macedonia * The bell sounds in Bela Tarr's Satantango by Mihaly Vig * Jean-Luc Herelle's Sounds of Nature: Pastoral Bells * Eric La Casa, Fonderie Paccard * Federico Mompou, Musica Callada played by Herbert Henck (inspired by his grandfather's bell foundry) * Lorenzo Ghielmi, Tintinnabulum: Organ Works by Arvo Part and the Music of the 16th Century and the Sound of Bells * Bells of Russian-Orthodox Churches * John Tavener, The Last Sleep of the Virgin * And this beautiful bell tone recorded by the lovely gossamer found here...
