I’m sure many of you hear the cicadas every night and well into the daytime, this time of year. For those of you who aren’t on such familiar terms with these insects, they are large, mostly invisible singing creatures who live in the trees and their combined chorus can be be almost deafening. When they are silent, you know summer is over. Hope you enjoy my ode to them.
Thanks for coming by to read.
Cicadas sing in chorus,
A clicking, humming breath
That builds to a crescendo,
Then stops, with nothing left.
It rattles in my oak tree,
Then further down the road,
Then buzzes the next neighborhood,
As if it’s gone for good,
And then, again, the oak tree rattles,
Joining in the fun.
Our chatty noisy neighbor, prattling,
Till the summer’s done.
Copyright 2021 Andrea LeDew
For other nature poems read Take Steps and Quarantine and Garden, Come Summer.
For an essay on our normal lives going dormant during COVID, only to re-emerge, read Shut In For a Season.
Maybe the last cicadas are welcome companions as you all get better🤞
Yes they are. Feeling infinitely better today, Margrit!
I’m very fond of the cicadas’ singing. When I was a kid, I referred to them as “heat bugs” because I only heard them when the weather was really hot.
It isn’t often that nature demands our attention. Fires, hurricanes…and cicadas. They remind me of the sound of a crying baby in the night. Youre so tired, you want to ignore it but you know if you do it will go on forever and keep you awake. But if you give it a little attention, it will fade right back into the background again and you can sleep in peace.
A very apt analogy.