Because I love the sound, the stridulating rise and fall that signals the beginning of summer's end, I spend five minutes looking up the insects that make it. The insects, whose call is as familiar to me as the word 'home', that have gone unnamed for years. For granted. A given. Until today when they start just at twilight. First one. Then few. Then many, all at once a rhythmic ruckus chorus in the trees, and at the horizon the moon kisses the mountains and then rises languidly into an indigo sky. I find that they are katydids. Specifically, the gladiator meadow katydid. And tonight their whirring symphony lifts through the warm air, filters in through my studio window screen, and brings with it the sweet scent of grass and ripening berries. With it, the stars come out. And then gradually the whole world folds close, until it is just here: illuminated under the incandescent light above me. My studio desk scattered with pens and cables and empty water jars and books.The evening hours are dwindling. The balance of available time vs. to-dos elusive for another day. And always when I begin, when I show up just here at the keyboard, it's the same: at the end of the day all I ever want to do is write.