Umbrella
A Journal of Poetry and Kindred Prose


Marilyn L. Taylor’s

poetry has appeared in Poetry, Measure, The American Scholar, The Formalist, The Atlanta Review, and many other journals.

The author of five collections of poetry (a sixth is forthcoming from Parallel Press in 2009), she serves as a Contributing Editor for The Writer magazine where her column on poetic craft appears bi-monthly.

Website.


—Back to Poetry Contents—

Crickets: a Late Chorale

As if Boulez had raised his arms
and readied his baton,
the crickets poise themselves to play
their autumn song.

Soprano saxophones invade
the saturated air
with rounds of semi-quavers, shrill
against the ear.

Repetitive cacophony
becomes the leitmotif—
they know their time to reproduce
is growing brief.

And we who listen will do one
of several likely things:
deplore the deviousness of time,
or fold our wings,

Or open them impulsively
chirping with all our mights
for one more spell—or maybe two—
of red-hot nights.

 

[Previously published in The Wisconsin Poets Calendar]

 
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