by Jay Rafferty |
In the spring we couldn’t tell
cicada screech from
frog call.
Our flat perched over
a sewer stream, a literal
shit creek, the only water
from there to the sea. We
saw a coyote stalking there
once, for what is anyone’s
guess. Raccoons too. Could
have been rabid. We never tried
to check.
These cicadas though
had been around from the start,
in the trees outside our bedroom
window. By spring I’d almost learnt
all their folk songs by heart but the
frogs
were freshly popped from spawn, nestled
in the bulrushes at the bottom
of the banks, their tune
out
of sync
by
a second
or two.
Unless you paid attention
(I never bothered)
you mixed up
amphibian and insect.
It hardly mattered for
when I’d leave that window
ajar, when I’d rest in the embrace
of chirps and croaks from
a thousand points of life,
that sweet song, that
natural anthem of
Shit Creek – San Diego
always made me think
Heaney hadn’t a clue.