Vuong Quoc Vu

Night Crickets

There are no stars tonight,
only shards of falling rain. 
The whole city glistens
with frozen rain. From empty
flower beds, from cracks
in the streets, some crickets
have come out—
They must think Spring
has arrived and crawled
from their mud burrows,
still sleepy, their brittle legs
creaking like rusted toy parts. 
They’ll all die in the cold,
but they’ve begun to sing.
From my bed, I hear
their singing and walk out
into the night, into the shadows
of trees that lean heavenward
like lofty bell towers. 
The air is crystalline with cold,
the dust in the streets washed away.
The shadows are blooming—