It is such a beautiful night tonight.
The rain has stopped
And the trees are rustling over a new gossip in the wind.
From my balcony
I can hear leaves being dragged along the ground by the breeze
Dancing to the mood, though not the rhythm
Of the crickets' incessant calls.
One has to wonder
Whose work it is that the crickets manage to so bring to life
Breathing a tranquility that is not silence into the night sky
Still tinted with a hint of pink.

Further away, I hear cars driving by
Not the roar of rush hour
But rather like the song of the crickets
Whose voices, each singing a very short counter-melody,
Weave together a complex polyphony that is at the same time intriguing and quiet.
It must be the eighteenth day of the lunar calendar;
It's strange to see a moon halfway to a half moon
Look so beautiful against an uncertain blue.
I am tempted to think it impolite to stare at a moon
Changing out of her ceremonial robes, but she sits unmoving, brighter at one edge,
Like a raw tear-shaped gem, back lit,
Adorning the Autumn sky.

There is something about the song of the crickets
It's the loudest thing I can hear tonight
Except when it is interrupted by the occasional hum of vehicles a distance away.
Yet, unlike the soft but insistent mumbling of the rotating electrical fan next door,
The more I try to follow the most identifiable melody and put myself into its sound
The more my ears tell me that I don't hear anything at all.
I was taught to identify instruments when listening to an orchestral work
But this night is full of sounds I don't know how to identify
But I suspect this is what a twenty-four bar rest really sounds like.
I can hear my neighbor packing something into a bag,
And it brings to me memories
of Grandma, packing things on a night
Just days before the Lunar New Year.
Like a nostalgic scent
Reconstructing in my mind a memory I did not see with my eyes
For a moment, part of me, is not quite here.
From time to time, the wind would be strong enough
To make the wind chime ring
Once, Twice, like a clock
Announcing the passing of an hour
As irregular as our memories that mark the years.