The Spring Cricket Considers the Question of Negritude

I was playing my tunes all by myself;

I didn't know anybody else

who could play along.

Sure, the tunes were sad—

but sweet, too, and wouldn't come

until the day gave out: you know

that way the sky has of dangling

her last bright wisps? That's when

the ache would bloom inside

until I couldn’t wait; I knelt down

to scrape myself clean

and didn’t care who heard.

Then came the shouts and whistles,

the roundup into jars, a clamber of legs.

Now there were others: tumbled,

clouded. I didn’t know their names.

We were a musical lantern;

children slept to our rasping sighs.

And if now and then one of us

shook free and sang as he climbed

to the brim, he would always

fall again. Which made them laugh

and clap their hands. At least then

we knew what pleased them,

and where the brink was.