I had decided
it was too dark outside
and too hot inside
to put the date on the page,
to wait, to try to find a poem
while the deepening sky
kept showing more colors
long after the sun had set
and the crickets  – well,
they sang as if
I hadn’t already written about them,
and the thrush in the distance
stopped after a while,
but the cricket cadences
with their polyrhythms
kept the song going
and the evening breeze came
in time for us to sleep.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 26, 2021