The Final Cricket
The August cricket-choir’s crescendo,
In percussive stereo,
Extends its forte clamor, frantic
For its final chance to show
The speed and skill of such tympanic,
Constantly increasing tempo—
Energetic and incessant,
All through summer omnipresent
In its rhythmic virtuoso.
Mid-September’s incremental
Ritard is hardly heard; its gentle
Moderato rings romantic
Recollections—sentimental
Echoes of long, energetic
Walks in cooling air, the subtle
Change of color, yellowing
Trees that rattle with the slowing,
Slightly softening ensemble.
Gradually the year is growing
Aged, decrescendo-ing
Faintly. Shivering vibrations—
Seen in red bush, felt in blowing
Leaves—are heard in these musicians’
Voices (fewer now) still flowing
Toward a resolution, sober
Yet intense, as bold October
Prophesies the year’s undoing.
In softer, smoother, slowing chant,
The final cricket sings lament:
The annual dying Fall foreshadowed
By his dirge. Still resonant,
He whispers nature’s lore aloud
To rattling trees’ accompaniment,
Unveiling in his plaintive solo,
Sung in pianissimo,
The disappearing year’s descent.
Cynthia Erlandson is a poet and fitness professional living in Michigan. Her third collection of poems, Foundations of the Cross and Other Bible Stories, was released in July, 2024 by Wipf and Stock Publishers. Her other collections are These Holy Mysteries and Notes on Time. Her poems have also appeared in First Things, Modern Age, The North American Anglican, The Orchards Poetry Review, The Book of Common Praise hymnal, The Catholic Poetry Room, and elsewhere.
What a great way to learn about crickets. I didn’t know anything about their life cycle until reading your excellent poem. I guess I’ve now heard my last cricket for the year, but I look forward to the cycle beginning again next year as weather permits.
Thank you, Warren. Yes, I love their music; it’s so calm and mysterious to me. It’s sad when it’s over.
Cynthia, beautiful poem with vibrant words like “percussive,” tympanic,” and “pianissimo” that resonate in every verse from August through October.
Thank you, Roy. It’s like a whole orchestra of the calmer, relaxing sort of percussion — although they’re just as much a choir. As I said to Warren, very mysterious.
Cynthia, your poem-long barrage of musical terms (along with the energy of the opening movement) immediately makes me think of symphonic form. However, the principal performer is just one cricket, ending the concert season. Your first stanza might correspond to the typical allegro (atypically choral in this composition), and the second stanza definitely slows as in a standard symphonic pattern. The third employs fewer voices, but does go for resolution in prophetic intensity. The finale stanza doesn’t recap the first, but naturally laments in a dirge for the year. Resoundingly imagined!
I’m deeply grateful for your analysis, Margaret. I’m glad the poem was able to reproduce symphonic form (though I didn’t have all of the music theory knowledge you have). The “prophetic intensity” you mention must be part of why I hear the crickets’ music as so poignant, as the changing of the seasons always feels very moving to me. I’m so happy that the poem resounded with you!
Currently we’re inundated with locusts which have zero musicality, unlike your wonderful cricket, Cynthia.
Thank you for commenting, Paul. I wish for your area an immigration of crickets!
I must say, Cynthia, that, if nothing else, this poem is a superb exercise in complicated simplicity. When no one has a good answer to an important question, we say that all we hear are the crickets. My mother used to say, “That isn’t cricket,” meaning that some game-rule had been violated — it took me years to understand that expression. Now that the crickets around here have gone silent, I no longer have a natural way of knowing what the temperature is. Late in the season, the sound of crickets is a cheering feature of the night. And notice how they go silent when you draw near. They must think a garter snake is approaching. I’ve seen friends of mine eat live crickets, and they tell me they go down more easily if you tear off the big hind legs. Among the better sonic effects here are:
“Ritard is hardly heard,” “nature’s lore aloud,” and “Moderato rings romantic/Recollections.” All in all, this is a masterful poem, one for the anthology highlighting the best of the current decade.
Oh, my, thank you so much, C.B.! I’m overwhelmed by your hearty approval. I’m especially glad you enjoyed the sonic effects. I, too, find their sound a cheering feature of the night; and here in Michigan, I’ve observed that the later the summer gets, the earlier they start singing (until they stop).
How interesting that you can know the temperature by the crickets’ sounds! I assume that’s a tool from your gardener’s tool box? I had not heard of the expression about the game rule being broken.
In fact, Cynthia, that the rate of cricket chirps is closely related to the air temperature is just a scientific factoid I read somewhere. I don’t usually see crickets during the day unless I turn a log or something over.
The title prepares the reader for words like poignant, melancholy, bitter-sweet, even sad, to come crowding in; and they do. A simple enough subject, but treated with deep sensitivity. I suppose I was prompted by the music terminology (cf Margaret Coats’ comments above), but this piece reminded me of Haydn’s “Farewell” Symphony, in which, when first performed at the Eszterhazy Palace, the orchestra blew out their candles one by one and left the stage until only a single violinist remained. Then he too stopped playing. The rest is silence.
Martin, I am so glad you’ve made me aware of Haydn’s Farewell Symphony! I hadn’t known the story, but it’s fascinating! I just read it, and watched the symphony performed on you tube. What a fun act — watching almost all the musicians gradually disappearing (even the apparently-confused conductor). It really is a great comparison for the disappearing crickets. Thank you!
Cynthia, what a glorious song of seasons seen and heard to the melodic beat of the busy cricket. My ears are attuned to the aural marvels of our garden, and your poem expresses one of them exquisitely. Thank you very much indeed!
Thank you, Susan! I have been fascinated with their unusual kind of music for a long time; it mesmerizes me. Sometimes I’ll just sit outside and listen for quite a while.
Really like the rhyming, both the patterning of it, and the actual and sometimes unexpected rhymes themselves: October/sober – a fine find indeed!