Night Songs

Tonight
you have to listen through
the hum of air conditioners
to hear the crickets sing
and those other insects
whose names I don’t know
cicadas? locusts?
Beats me.

What I do know is
that for many years now
these night songs of
unnamed insects have
serenaded me and
echoed in my bones
Because for many years now
all of them, in fact

I have never been far from trees.

17 July 2006