Ooma went first. He swelled his throat to a luminous pearl and let out a single note— Ooooooohm —that vibrated through the soil, up the grass blades, and into the very bones of every listener. Ants stopped mid-march. Caterpillars wept. It was the sound of the earth turning toward spring.

"You play fast, young one," Ooma croaked, his vocal sac deflating. "But music is not a race. It is a conversation with silence."

From that day on, whenever you hear a frog’s low oom in a marsh and a grasshopper’s bright zik in the field, listen closely. They are not competing.

The Great Hummingbird landed on a twig between them. "Ooma," she said, "you sang the memory of the world. Kiko, you played the joy of the moment."