Summer's Serenaders

 I heard my first cricket of this summer yesterday morning as we drove past this fence-row of wildflowers when we were leaving the cottage...

The crickets have begun earth’s summer-song

Their serenade stipples night’s dewy deep

And wafts up to the space where stars are hung

And lures the poet from her place of sleep

To wonder at the strange staccato thrum

Their nocturne fills the air with vibrato

Where musky dark is like a stadium

That veils the choir yet hails us to a show

That bids us let its cadences pervade

Staid skin and bone until the heart of hearts

Partakes of this anointed serenade

And the sweet summer-sadness it imparts

© Janet Martin

The dark is not yet drenched with cricket-song, but softly stippled with the prelude to late-summer's crescendo.