Since we have our first snow and our first hard frost, and the seeds within the hardened earth lie and wait:

In fall the cricket beneath the rose bush
watches as the roses fall to the very ground that is his kingdom also.

So they’re neighbors, one full of fragrance,
the other the harper of a single dry song.

 We call this time of the year
the beginning of the end of another circle,

a convenience and nothing more.

For the cricket’s song
is surely a prayer,
and a prayer, when it is given, is given forever.

This is a truth I’m sure of, for I’m older than I used to be,

and therefore I understand things
nobody would think of
who’s young and in a hurry.

The snow is very beautiful. Under it are the lingering
petals of fragrance, and the timeless body of prayer.

Mary Oliver, The Cricket and the Rose