“Oh, yes, they sing,” my mother said
When she would tuck me into bed
And tell me of the song
Of the snails whose shells sound—long—
Who filled the forests but then fled.
Yet in my schoolbooks I had read
The trilling songs were made instead
By crickets chirping all night long,
So surely this old myth was wrong
That said they sing.
Now when I think I was misled
By the old story I was fed
When wonder went along
With myths made into song,
I hear her voice inside my head:
“Oh, yes, they sing.”