TINY ZEN

Now that the cooling days are here, the singing insects are in the summer of their contentment. Here on an early breezy evening I can't even count the variety of choruses from earth, grasses, bamboo, trees and sky; impossible to unweave the warp and woof of this surrounding tapestry of song.

Last night a singing insect of a kind I'd never heard before began sounding through one of our front screen doors not a song but a pure call, a special summons, a rhythmic generation that was more sensation than sound; it rattled the skull and defied such mereness as ears.

Meant to stir the entire bodies of kindred insects with the most important message of their lives, its vibrations implied measures far beyond the spectral pinpoint of human hearing, my ears probably catching only the bare peripheries of the full sonic rainbow flowing over me.

On and on it went into the night, the sounding of a single insect that I could not even find to see, expressing the vast magnitude of a minuscule being taking its brief turn at living a share of life and all it means.

Out there in the darkling air was a tiny Zen master, chanting a cosmic koan.

THE SUMMER OF THEIR CONTENTMENT

Now that the cooling days of late August are here, the insects that sing of night are singing of day as well, full in the summer of their contentment… Here in a mountain breezy afternoon I can't begin to count the variety of choruses from earth, underbrush, tree and sky-- it is impossible to distinguish, into their exquisite threads, all the woof and warp of this skywide tapestry of song...

Last night a singing insect of a kind I'd not yet heard (i.e., not paid attention to) began singing through our screen door-- or rather, sounded, for it was not so much a song as an unadulterated call, unrefined for human ears of course, it was a summons to all kindred, with a rhythmic generation more sensation than sound, defying such mereness as ears, meant for entire bodies of the proper size and impulse, a vibration of greater measure than humanity allows... would that I could hear beyond our mundane range to the sonic rainbow this song implied, with its attention-perturbing power.

On and on it went as we do in our own conversations, but this was only one, giving all there was, awaiting a response in its brief turn at life and what it means to say... A little Zen master, unseen, offering nonetheless a cosmic koan. The same heaven was born in us, if we have not been taught - and learned - to forget…