Cricket

I was meditating, grateful to the miserable weather
for condoning my isolation, when I heard
a lone cricket throbbing through the cold, wet leaves.
What was he chanting? I wondered. Must he sing to live?
“help, help, help,” he ached, or maybe “please, please, please.”
I went out to find him but when I approached he
vanished into silence. I stood in the rain, listening,
wanting him to teach me how to endure, to thrive
in an inhospitable world, but he would not give himself up.
Back inside I found the silence I’d requested.
Today summer has been granted a reprieve.
Again, the crickets try to chirp
their way through the walls.