If I lived closely on the earth and listened to cricket music, I
would know the weather. Not as numbers and words, but as feelings
against my skin.
But we live in a world where things are numbered and counted. The
snowy tree cricket of the Midwest chirps at a rate where the number
of chirps in fourteen seconds plus forty equals the temperature in
degrees Fahrenheit.
As I sat in the dark of my backyard last night, I tried to count the
chirps of a single cricket. But how, when hundreds were singing?
The crickets were chirping their single chips and katydids were
singing their songs. Katydids sing their name. If you say "katydid"
over and over as fast as you can, you will have the rhythm of the
katydid's loud song.
Folklore has it that Katy fell in love with a handsome young man. But
he loved and wed her sister. When the young couple was found dead --
poisoned in their bed -- people wondered who killed them. The bugs
began to sing, "Katydid, Katydid, Katydid."
I don't know if she did or if she didn't. But I do know the summer
night would be empty without the music of katydids and crickets.
Copyright Bud Polk, 1997
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