Three Spheres II (Escher), Sonnet #366

The past is images faded into patterns,

A dim, smudged diary of pleasures and concerns

We see through a crystal sphere of water and oil,

A second universe of calm and bitter moil.

The future yet to appear is already here,

Like the moon in clouds or a mask, a faceless sphere.

We can’t be sure, but we’re almost convinced it’s there,

As we take on faith there’ll be a next breath of air.

The present is our own distorted reflection

To be, added to the past’s fading collection

At the instant we see the next experience

With a curious and innocent prurience.

No; present is our eyes, myriad blinking spheres

That see through reflections to find that we are seers.  

The Cricket Eclipse, Sonnet #365

He chirps beneath our crabapple tree all night long.

The cricket’s krrrr is a two, three and four beat song,

Random and loud. He stops when a voice from afar

Seems to answer, rasping the same note bar for bar.

(The cicada’s bright buzzing in the August sun

Is lovelier, but isn’t meant for anyone.)

I do not understand the cricket’s existence,

His urgency, or his athletic persistence.

He fills the humid summer night with his griping,

Yet stops at the first pre-dawn robin’s sweet piping.

I’ve never heard him make a sound during the day,

Until today, when the air went from light to gray.

As the sun’s eclipse spread its mockery of doom,

I heard all the crickets in the neighborhood boom.