E.M. Oliver

Minute of Clarity

We've said what we've said.
Now you are in
there.
And I am out
here,
where the crickets
bicker
in the thickets.

Wing on wing.
Scrape and file.

What starts as a chirp
molts—
into a seething,
screeching,
heat-mad choir:

Sing! Sing! Sing! Sing!
Seek! Seek! Seek! Seek!

I look up.
The sickle moon reaps Venus.
Its blood spatters the blackened altar
with stars.

Suddenly,
the crickets quit.
The silence bites.
My skin prickles in the deaf air.
Stillness pours cold.
Neck hairs quiver.
I go dumb.

How long is a minute?
How thick is a thicket?

The sky is a stage
where constellations play.
They tread on the blind
so that meaning can be derived.
They crush my carapace.

You and me.
I and I.

We bleed.
We writhe.

 The cosmos throbs in quiet revelation.
Understanding arrives like a sigh.
But a minute is just a minute.
And the world rolls by.

I grasp at the sound between curtain fall
and applause—
bracing for the loss—
when the crickets praise their gods.

E.M. Oliver studied literature at Texas A&M University for some reason and loves the “initial-initial-last name” format for authors. He's been a teacher, a woodworker, a farmer, and an artist, but remains a resolute defender of idleness.