Poetry Sunday: Crickets by Sue Owen
Here are some of the sounds that I enjoy in the summer landscape: birdsong (of course!), frogs, cicadas, and crickets. Sue Owen, also, has an appreciation of the sound of crickets on a summer night. They inspired her poem.
Crickets
by Sue Owen
Some summer nights you
can hear them getting all
worked up over this idea
of cheerfulness and song.
can hear them getting all
worked up over this idea
of cheerfulness and song.
Deep in the grasses where
they hide, there is a need
to be heard in the darkness,
even if their voices are
they hide, there is a need
to be heard in the darkness,
even if their voices are
so small they sound
like a door creaking on
its hinge, or the squeak
a drawer makes when
like a door creaking on
its hinge, or the squeak
a drawer makes when
it opens up at last.
It seems as if the damp
air and dew are trying
to hold their song down
It seems as if the damp
air and dew are trying
to hold their song down
out of sheer gravity,
but neither dampness nor
darkness makes them stop.
In fact, the crickets like
but neither dampness nor
darkness makes them stop.
In fact, the crickets like
to show off their song,
to let it lift up off
the earth the way that
all notes rise to the stars,
to let it lift up off
the earth the way that
all notes rise to the stars,
and float up through the
thick night, as if their
joy itself were the only light
we needed to follow.
thick night, as if their
joy itself were the only light
we needed to follow.
Maybe if Donald Trump listened to some of the sounds of summer, anything other than his own voice in fact, he would learn that weakening protection for endangered species, some of which have already been brought to the brink of extinction by humans, is a bonehead thing to do.
ReplyDeleteI think listening to the sounds of Nature has a salutary effect on most humans and could give them an incentive to want to preserve those sounds. Perhaps it would even work on our president.
DeleteI too love the crickets! One of my sons used to get so annoyed by that continuous sound, claiming it kept him awake. We would just shake our heads. But he spent part of his childhood in Cincinnati, OH with his dad where they had the cicadas every 7 years so I guess he associated the two.
ReplyDeleteI can see how that would happen, but I even enjoy the cicadas. Of course I’ve never endured one of the periodic mass events that happen in some areas.
DeleteHow lovely! Their song is so great to hear.
ReplyDeleteI think it perfectly calls to mind those soft summer nights.
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