It must have been
an evening in early August
when ‘cacophony’ was coined.
What other moment
could have minted
such an awesome articulation:
the world’s most perfect word?
It could only have been
an evening in early August—
summer’s penultimate peak,
its yellow apex
of crisp exhaustion,
relentless haze,
and infinite insects.
.
It was surely an evening
in early August
that was first christened
‘Cacophony.’
Two grown brothers
in Adirondacks,
surmising over snifters,
searching, scratching
for that word
as yet unborn,
unspoken and unknown.
Webster was found wanting,
with its diminutive ‘din,’
and its incomplete ‘outcry.’
‘Tumult’ was too vague,
‘commotion’ too common–
inadequate to describe
the roaring ruckus,
the blaring, bustling, Babel
of God’s winged insects
in the August all around them.
.
And so ‘cacophony’
was coined to capture
the chaos and clamor
of that auditory onslaught
unique to an early August evening.
‘Cacophony’
was an inception—an invention—
to ameliorate an ambiance,
to embody an energy.
‘Cacophony’ was conceived
to concisely convey
the singular symphony of
an early August evening.
And now every subsequent evening,
in the still of summer’s nightfall,
we sound our own barbaric yawps—
we sing and are not silent–
the songs of ourselves
the songs of our summer
the cacophony of our creation
over the treetops of the world.
August 9, 2021
