Cricket

I was early for a meeting recently, so I ducked into a bookshop inside Old Street station to fill the time.

It was a small shop, books (mostly preowned) everywhere, organised in a way that wasn't immediately obvious but probably made complete sense to someone. I was happy to wander.

A slim volume caught my eye. Felicity, by Mary Oliver. Tiny, sixty pages, perhaps a few more. I picked it up and flipped through it, the way you do when you're not looking for anything in particular, and landed on page 27.

I have always liked the number 27. It felt like an instruction.

The poem on that page was about a cricket. It was quiet and kind and small in the best possible way. It made me think about endings. About belonging. About what it means to have been excellent at the quiet business of being alive.

I bought the book.

I am now, apparently, a person who reads poetry.

Nothing is too small not to be wondered about - Mary Oliver

The cricket doesn’t wonder
if there’s a heaven
or, if there is, if there’s room for him.

It’s fall. Romance is over. Still, he sings.
If he can, he enters a house
through the tiniest crack under the door.
Then the house grows colder.

He sings slower and slower.
Then, nothing.

This must mean something, I don’t know what.
But certainly it doesn’t mean
he hasn’t been an excellent cricket
all his life.