I sit with my prayer book
and my coffee,
listening to the kind of music
that soothes my soul
like no other –
an August morning before the sun rises,
the bird calls of summer
are now joined
by a rhythm section
of crickets –
I cannot identify them,
the particular tweets and calls and coos
that bounce about randomly
on the river of singing crickets,
but as each one’s voice
blesses the space between us,
I become,
a little more me –
I am the song of each bird,
I am the melody of the crickets,
I am the drops of rain that now begin to fall
into the movement of this August symphony.
I know nothing about music or how an orchestra works –
I know nothing about bird calls
or why the song of the crickets returns every August –
and still
I Am
this August symphony.

Painting by Hannibal Mane