Hope & Charlatans & Serenades
I was not Greenpeace tonight.
If I’m being honest, I’m not Greenpeace any night.
I drink far too much Sauvi B,
which is housed in far too much olive green glass,
that I all too happily toss right down the chute to the dumpster,
to even remotely claim “green” status.
I walked into my house with a box of leftover peanut butter pie, pignoli cookies, hot and sour soup, and Korean skin care cream to the most irritating humming.
I didn’t really notice too much at first.
I mean I heard it but reduced it to city street traffic.
You know how it is when you’re an urban convert.
Tune it out.
Keep it movin’.
Go about your business.
As I was chewing my prebiotics after dinner—
which, just by the way, ignorance really is bliss.
Especially the ignorance of your 20’s.
No one tells you of prebiotics, probiotics, collagen, creatine, eye floaters—
and you’re still young enough that you can just go to bed and sleep off a whole pizza,
and wake with that body—
the body—
the one we all judge and take for granted,
and wish we could have back.
(a moment of silence for the 20’s body—we love you.)
As I whizzed back by my balcony, I noticed that incessant humming better.
As I listened to the racket and reached back into my country boy file, it clicked.
Where have I heard this incessant noise before?
Dammit, I thought.
A cricket or a cicada or a tree frog, or some shit has somehow wandered up to my 31st-floor high-rise and is serenading me from my herb garden.
I pushed the sliding door open and walked out into the late July evenin’ heat.
The kind that’s hot like a stove windin’ down after supper.
The sound intensified.
I scanned the perimeter for the tone-deaf merrymaker.
As I turned to go back in, I saw her.
A Katydid.
My eyes narrowed.
“Sorry, darlin’,” I said.
And took my hand, and flicked her ass right off the railin’
and down toward Ivan Allen Blvd.
She might have been the Adele of Katydids, but I doubt it.
In Central America, katydids represent hope.
My cousin’s nanny taught me that once.
I can’t remember if it’s by name or by being,
but they do.
This one lived.
I saw her wings spread and fly off toward the Southern Company Building.
She’ll live to sing of hope again—
but from someone else’s balcony.
Although—
even tipsy,
and ungrateful in the moment—
I’m thankful for her.
I hope she left some here.
Even for the ol’ wine-drunk bastard who cast her off.