Nothing Is Too Small Not to Be Wondered About by Mary Oliver

The cricket doesn’t wonder
if there’s a heaven
or, if there is, if there’s room for him.

It’s fall. Romance is over. Still, he sings.
If we can, he enters a house
through the tiniest crack under the door.
Then the house grows colder.

He sings slower and slower.
Then, nothing.

This must mean something, I don’t know what.
But certainly it doesn’t mean
he hasn’t been an excellent cricket
all his life.

—

by Mary Oliver

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From Contemplations by Anne Bradstreet

I heard the merry grasshopper then sing,

The black clad Cricket bear a second part.

They kept one tune and played on the same string,

Seeming to glory in their little Art.

Shall creatures abject thus their voices raise?

And in their kind resound their maker’s praise:

Whilst I, as mute, can warble forth no higher layes.

–

[Part 9 of 33 from Bradstreet’s long poem, Contemplations]