On the last night of August

The Carrying Place bridge swings closed; a final rotation on this hot August day. Downbound in the Murray Canal the sail vessel ‘Sally’ courses out toward Indian Island and a blue moon rising. Night falls and the crickets begin their chant.

At North Beach provincial park the neon sundown is swallowed by Weller’s Bay; the last of the daycrowd now leaving. I watch by the Consecon bridge as geese gather in cattails and moonrise to rest the night safe from the reaches of fox; where spring peepers and toads and chorus frogs chant to the rhythm of fireflies and headlights that chatter along the nearby highway. I watch in the dusk as swans collect in Pleasant Bay and the North Star rises over the plains of Hillier. Cicadas and katydids joined by the primal cry of coyotes that run the ridge that chases old shorelines.

The chant of crickets now brave: safe under rocks and logs and cover of night; hidden from robins and snakes that hunt by day. Male crickets beckon females who risk great distances to hone in on their call. Like the moths that hide from the radar of bats, it is a last chance if she is to mate and lay eggs in the circle of life.

Along Benway Road, and at Melville, Northport and Big Island, the mockingbird and red-eyed vireo sing; the whippoorwill lingers in Trumpour’s marsh that grows from row-upon-row of hay bale ingots ripe from nearby fresh-cut fields.

Farmstands along the roadsides now silent; garlic and potatoes; onions and tomatoes. The moon above my head; Ursa Major beholder of the secrets of the night and meanwhile at Glenora, the ferry crew work in fluorescent vests beneath sodium light to snug the boat to dockside to hold the night that calms the water’s edge. The midnight ferry now home, the dock will move once more with life in a few short hours as the Cooper fishing tug heads from shore, her diesel engine growling by the Main Duck islands in the slate grey of 4 a.m.

‘Gunk!’ Can you hear it? Like the sound of a loose banjo string: “GUNK, gunk-gunk-gunk …” With large tympani-like eardrums, big green frogs have joined the symphony. Bronze or brown or even blue with belly white and yellow; it is still the big green frog. Green frogs that arrive as tadpoles and overwinter in swamps, brooks, ponds and lakes: to be a voice of summer. Green frogs that travel paths between breeding and hibernating: ‘GUNK!’ Green frog sleepless on this night we hear you.

The crickets are now loud with frenzy, I watch the web of treetops that sweep the starry skies when a barred owl calls; the owl – stalker of the night, ruler of ancient mythologies and rhyming children’s tales.

Tonight is a marker on the calendar: a shift from summer consciousness to tender autumn as we move with the heavens. And so I commune; deep purple skies light up my porch, suspended like a caribou’s cradle on the tundra. Sharer of heart thoughts; bearer of the unknown; witness to the music of silent summer nights.