by Harry Hyman
The Giggle
In the misty, murky mire of a mangled, marshy mud
rose a Moon betwixt the shadows ‘neath a starry night above.
No bird beat wings. No mouse did squeak. Not even an owl’s hoot
could pierce the stillness clinging to the trees and plants and roots.
I stomped upon the cigarette. The embers fumed and fizzled.
As I turned to go back inside, I swore I heard a giggle;
not large but small, not big but tiny, not huge but very wee
behind the house, down by the marsh’s solitary tree.
I stepped on leaves. I sloshed thru grass. I parted a bush with fear
and beheld a sight, not often seen, uncommonly vivid and rare.
A tiny stadium filled with bugs, some odd, some known by name
were giggling, cheering in tiny voices at an Insect Baseball game!
Miniature floodlights lit the diamond. A roach hit a highball fly.
A beetle with cap and glove caught it. The audience roared and sighed.
I couldn’t believe it! My mind was blown! Legs and feet went limp
as mosquito vendors shouted “Get your hotdogs, burgers and shrimp!”
Mesmerized, my face went slack. The muscles cramped my jaw.
Only a spectacle like this comes once to remember forevermore.
I moved and something snapped or cracked, a limb, a twig, a branch.
All bugs did turn their eyes on me. Their glare….an avalanche!
They scattered in an instant, even turned off all the lights
and plunged the field in darkness making shadows of the night.
The beating wings, the mouse’s squeak, the owl’s nightly hoot
now pierced the calm to chase the bugs in hungry, hot pursuit.
And the tiny voices faded ‘neath a starry night above
in the misty, murky mire of a mangled marshy mud.
