Locusts buzz Missouri Missouri Missouri

In the trees above.

Their empty shells cling to thin bark

Like cast off suits of armor—

Hinged with sightless moon eyes.

All night crickets chirp like stars

And we lay on the grass—

Too hot to go to bed upstairs.

In the moonlight fat bodied moths

With huge wings:

luna clear as moonlight

 polyphemous, with owlish blue eyes,

cecropia mottled with gold

Sipped from flowers that scent the humid air.

We hear blinking of lightening bugs

And the secret sound of earthworms

Tunneling mazes below our blankets.

And we listen to ears of corn growing

In the Victory garden.

Their silken threads gossip of

Mayans and Pottawatomis.

We can hear

The trumpet vine’s brassy blare

And fox hounds baying near Hinkson Creek

Far far away.

                                                --Barbara Spring