My Father's Singing
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When I right the overturned ash can,
or lift the broken ribbed boat,
then the crickets which are
the night’s voice scatter.
Alone they make their lonely scrapings,
their tiny lullabies.

So how can I listen for a single
voice among so many, a voice
unable to lift a ragged hymn alive;
yet in dreams or the green,
unearthly light of the dashboard
he sang unembarrassed to his child?

The crickets’ chirping rose to a whine
when we sped through a summer night
while cicadas in their insistence climbed
out of themselves so that we
were for a moment no longer
able to hear them.

Surely this was better
than sleeping undisturbed,
rocked upon the night’s waters,
since those carefully caged songs,
those hoardings of good luck,
were loosed and given voice.

The water-logged boat will not
catch fire on the shore.
The crows which plagued the summer
have stayed to see the fall.
And in the dry grass under the elm,
husks that had been song.