The Cricket and the Rose

In fall
the cricket
beneath the rose bush
watches

as the roses fall
to the very ground
that is his kingdom also.
So they're neighbors,

one full of fragrance,
the other
the harper
of a single dry song.

We call this time of the year
the beginning of the end
of another circle,
a convenience

and nothing more.
For the cricket's song
is surely a prayer,
and a prayer, when it is given,

is given forever.
This is a truth
I'm sure of,
for I'm older than I used to be,

and therefore I understand things
nobody would think of
who's young and in a hurry.
The snow is very beautiful.

Under it are the lingering
petals of fragrance,
and the timeless body
of prayer.

I just read this morning in the Gainesville Sun how 1 in 7 kitchens would not pass a restaurant grade health inspection. Hearing this I take stock of my kitchen. On the window sill, a bowl full of old rose petals beckons my attention. I periodically wonder if I should toss them, their beauty long gone. Then I hold them to my face and their fragrance persists. So they remain yet another day.

There on the floor is one of those large crickets that inhabit our outside porch and occasionally wander in. To ease the heat we open windows and doors in the morning and this cricket has seen this as invitation to cruise my kitchen floor. She is rather ugly, her head out of proportion and her purpose unknown to me.

I don't know if anyone would see old flower petals and dinosaur like crickets as appropriate for a kitchen, or even if I do. Like Mary, I too am older and do not hurry on to thoughts of what my mother might say of odd crickets and old roses in a kitchen. Instead I ponder how I shall pray this day as I let the aroma of life filter into my walled refuge through open doors and open heart.

How do you pray?