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