Happy Gabe's Birthday

I have been remiss in writing because I’ve been working on another project for three weeks. It’s almost complete; just one or two more days at most, and I am happy to get back to writing steadily.

Today is August 31st, Zach’s brother Gabe’s 24th birthday…so a good day. The music which plays annually during Gabe’s celebration is in full chorus. I forgot, when I wrote about corn, chicory and cicadas to include one more ‘c’: crickets!

Here in Maryland, as the corn grows tall and green and sleek - in a year with good rain, which we have had - and the cicadas chirp in the trees, and the chicory blooms blue mist along summer roads...

crickets sing.

There is no music in the world as sweet as their song.

You hear it with the windows open, driving along, and it never stops: at 40, 50, 60 miles an hour, enough crickets sing in every square acre that as we zoom out of range of the song of one cricket, another five or a dozen or a hundred come into range, so the sweet chirp flows continuously along miles and miles of summer roads rolling through fields to anywhere, to everywhere.

I don’t think crickets eat anything. I don’t think they hurt anything.

They just show up and sing. Their song is the prelude to the seasonal dance in which summer gives way to autumn. In their music, you can hear leaves beginning to turn yellow, and pumpkins ripening. Deep under the ground, the earth begins to cool, and dream of frost.

Happy cricket-song birthday, Gabe. Rumor has it that someone may be calling you today, if he can get a line out.