ON SINGING TO THE CRICKETS BY DAVID BREEDEN

When there are so many,
          in dark drawers,
          in jumbled files,
so many unread,
          unheard, why write
          another poem?

The poet sang, and . . .
crickets.

Why sing another song
          when the echo will be
          almost inevitably
                    crickets?

They won’t clap.
They murmur all the while.

          A tough crowd,
               crickets.

Yet they are there,
          singing their own songs,
               absorbed

in their own horizons
with their own winter coming.

               The poet sang, and . . .
                    so did the crickets.

David Breeden has an MFA from The Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa, a Ph.D. from the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi. He has published widely.