As the sun begins to settle down for dusk
and the Methodist Church carillon nags again
toward the final bars of “Oh, My Soul,”
two cicadas tune up overhead in the maple
that started shoulder high to our oldest
and now shades half the house till noon.
It’s too late for new business, too early
for the nightly bacchanal at the frat house
down the street. The neighborhood’s on pause,
and so are we, waiting for another page
to turn, for our youngest to get back
from his paper route, for the roast to cook.
One cicada tries a few fast licks,
the other answers, then there’s almost silence:
a radio plays from the pink apartment house
that blocks our view, a pickup rumbles past,
a dog barks in the distance. For a moment,
time falters, the great gears disengage,
and nearly every yard becomes angelic
in this hush of deepening green, where sprinklers
catch the evening light and fling it back,
where the nighthawks tuck their wings and plunge.
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