Yes, I was reciting my verse. Just jumping in the meadow high on perfume of spring flowers when I bumped into a relative. He was a little locust and our talk was very short. But it changed my life beyond the power of poetry to express.

"We're leaving, we're flying, we're springing, we're winging...!" On and on he chattered. "Whoa... wait!" I had to use all six of my legs to hold him down and make him listen. "Where are you going?"

"On migration - seems like seventeen years since last time we did it. The locusts are going on migration, on migration..."

"But when?" I managed to get in.

"Tomorrow, as soon as the sun dries the dew from our wings."

That's all I learned, for he bounded away lickety-split like a rabbit. But of course I should have known. The whole countryside had been abuzz for weeks. Something big was going on. The air was electric with snap and intensity. Yes, here it is - the chance of a lifetime! I look very much like a locust. Why not join this migration? Think of the adventure.

And so it happened: through chance and destiny I flew off with billions of my locust cousins - I, an ordinary cricket.