Iron Cricket

Determination

Is hidden beneath

The rocks,

The rocks that build our future.

Rocks… or pebbles?

“It depends on how close you stand to the problem,”

Said father.

I remember the nights in mid-July

When the wind would blow

Hard on the branches

And rip the leaves from their stems on those branches

Of the oaks outside

The window across from my bedroom.

It would wake me

From my sleep

And the voices of two thousand crickets

Would be lost in the roar.

That was a time when the days were like years

And I could feel the spaces between seasons

(Between fall and winter,

And spring and summer)

And the days were worth staying awake for.

But in the years between

Then and now,

One voice,

Mine,

The voice of an iron cricket,

Has learned to fight

And to be heard above the roar,

That overbearing roar

Of the summer night wind,

Though I have not yet found

The courage within me to use it.

I have the makings of a revolution within me,

While utopia may be found in sleep.