Intermezzo

Because of summer travels I'm a day early with this week's blog and already know I'll be a day late next time. So, I figure this evens things out, nicely.

Until three years ago I resided in various places where pleasant sounds of the night drifted through open, summer windows. Frogs and crickets lulled me to sleep, chick-a-dees and robins roused me in the mornings. That changed when I moved into a high rise. As we all know, builders tend to locate them in high density areas which usually means almost constant TRAFFIC NOISE.

Having lived here for a while, I notice that on weekends and holidays this annoyance decreases dramatically, at least for a few hours early on. And, occasionally, if I wake soon enough on an average day, I can still hear birds singing their way into the dawn. But the nighttime hooting of the owl no longer reaches my ears.



Intermezzo


Unadorned melodies of the night

      rain washing the world
      a concert of crickets
      the wind holding court

swallowed by scores
of mufflers and motors and horns
                           ten stories down.

The unmetered run of darkness
echoing hot rods and half-wits.

But sometimes            predawn
the chance for birdsong
in the hush between movements.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor