Crickets
Being sung to sleep by August crickets,
Rural dreams,
Small town
landscapes,
The dancing quiet of the night
Interrupted
only by traffic,
traffic,
more traffic,
By memories,
Closed factories,
Sulfur wasted hillsides,
Forgotten mines;
By unemployment,
Dancing demon of the northeast;
By age,
The crumbling beauty
Of a fifty
sixty
hundred year old town;
By a dream
As soured as rancid milk
And a hope
That died in a jungle.
Being sung to sleep by August crickets,
As a child
of almost six,
Peering
at the stars in search of Sputnik,
Just launched and UP THERE somewhere.
Mars danced
in a clear night sky;
Few lights
dimmed the stars
Though the rural air bore the tinge
--- open factories ---
And working mines bled sulfur.
Being sung to sleep by August crickets,
Rural slums,
Weed-rich
landscapes,
Dreaming back those quiet nights.
8/8/83
