Crickets

October 17, 2014

Water's Edge, Hudson Falls, NY

I hear a cricket in the Depot field,
walk a rod or two,
and find the note proceeds from near a rock.
   HDT Journal, August 20, 1851

No matter how busy a person may be, the world keeps turning,
and the seasons progress.
Now the days become shorter, and tinged with a vague melancholy.

In the twilight – which arrives earlier and earlier each day – one can still hear katydids out in the yard.

The crunch of leaves underfoot foretells the end of the growing season
-- the end of many things, for a while, 

such as the evening songs of the crickets. 
We cling to the sounds and smells of Summer, hesitant to let it go.

This year, we’ve been granted an extension of sorts.
With the exception of a few chilly mornings, the temperatures have stayed well above normal.
We have yet to experience a frost.

And for a little while longer, the crickets are still with us – a summer sound which, for Thoreau, was always a harbinger of autumn.

They are shy as birds, these little bodies.
Those nearest me continually cease their song
    as I walk,
so that the singers are always a rod distant,
and I cannot easily detect one.
It is difficult, moreover, to judge correctly
    whence the sound proceeds.

They are somewhat protected
    by the universalness of the sound,
each one’s song being merged
    and lost in the general concert,
as if it were the creaking of earth’s axle.