I wonder if the crickets enjoy the bright nights, or fear them? It seems the light would make it easier for predators to see them, but maybe the insects are unaware of the heightened danger. Lovely things can have that effect. But perhaps the best time to be devoured is when one is rapt. Maybe that's the ancient wisdom the word carries. Maybe the idea of the word is like a hunting night bird, wings flashing moonlight as it lifts its prey into the sky. Watching the moon rise, all I can think of is how splendid it is, and I don't notice until later that the rhythmic chirping of the crickets is like the ticking of clocks.
Sunday Verse
True Ways of Knowing
by Norman MacCaig
Not an ounce excessive, not an inch too little,
Our easy reciprocations. You let me know
The way a boat would feel, if it could feel,
The intimate support of water.
The news you bring me has been news forever,
So that I understand what a stone would say
If only a stone could speak. Is it sad a grassblade
Can't know how it is lovely?
Is it sad that you can't know, except by hearsay
(My gossiping failing words) that you are the way
A water is that can clench its palm and crumple
A boat's confiding timbers?
But that's excessive, and too little. Knowing
The way a circle would describe its roundness,
We touch two selves and feel, complete and gentle,
The intimate support of being.
The way that flight would feel a bird flying
(If it could feel) is the way a space that's in
A stone that's in water would know itself
If it had our way of knowing.
