Concerning Cricket

A Cubist concoction of layered planes,
seems cricket. A match progresses
in a stiff-legged imperial ballet
with yachting costumes. Scoring

is prolific, as with stock markets.
There are slap-bats and wee wooden
sticks--quite droll. Cricket is so
very, very something, far afield

from clarity but highly ordered,
bright and secretive. Sedate, surreal.




hans ostrom 2018

Twice-Believing Creatures

Twice-Believing Creatures

Crickets sing the word "ceasing" electronically

in dirt and dry stalks.

A heavy black beetle turns his belly

to the cosmos, plucks with his six feet

at the needles of a darkening pine bough.

The Magician dances out of straw. He is Dusk;

he juggles the sun and the moon and the evening star.

Here and there a few are alert,

some curious, some thankful--like the deer,

weary of swishing horseflies away

from their backsides all day and hungry

after the heavy afternoon;--like the raccoon,

waddling off to make a living at the pond's edge;

--and the tireless child, the old man

who stands near his garden listening to the corn grow,

and the woman with her hands folded,

singing out loud to nobody.

They know that dusk takes today's body

and brings another after an interlude of dreaming.

They know nothing of the sort;

they are as dubious as the light at dusk.

They know the world to be as new

as the note of a gnat in the ear, as old

as the lizard's dry smirk,

a boulder's personality, darkness.

Hans Ostrom, 2013