The weather is stiffling hot in Washington DC. After eight weeks off from teaching, I must go back to school on Monday. No complaints, just an ambiguous feeling of wanting this humid mugginess to end while, at the same time, wanting summer to last forever. Crickets chirp loudly and incessantly outside my study window, tempting me to believe that summer will never end. These two poems remind me otherwise.
End of Time
Late August heat,
before the dregs
of a Gulf hurricane
drags its rain
and a chill Canadian breeze
over us,
has the crickets singing
end of time songs.
by Kathleen M. Tenpas
End of Summer
The little songs of summer are all gone today.
The little insect instruments are all packed away:
The bumblebee's snare drum, the grasshopper's guitar,
The katydid's banjo, the cricket's violin,
The dragonfly's cello have ceased their merry din.
Oh, where is the orchestra? From harpist down to drummer
They've all disappeared with the passing of the summer.
by Rowena Bennett
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