Crickets Returning

We looked up, delighted to hear

in small strains, the refrain

of crickets returning

Soft, intermittent, rising and falling,

not in the trees where we heard them

in previous years,

not as a constant, a chorus that stretched

through the days and the nights of the summer

But cricket song, still, here in the fields,

slowly increasing to fill up the late afternoon —

a light recompense

for things we have lost,

a reminder that everything changes,

and things that are missing

can also return

to be loved and rejoiced in once more.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 24, 2019