Song of the Cicadas

[lone_thrift]

Along the great
body of Lake Michigan
summer has engulfed
North-side Chicago,
city of big shoulders.
The air is thick
with heat and vapor.

The arboreal life is
immense with song.
Powerful music from cicadas
mixed with lesser chimings of
chirping sparrows and
a passing cardinal.

Cicadas! Crawling from
dark lives in the soil,
metamorphosing at the
base of trees to dry and
taking flight into canopies
singing the summer
electric in celebration.

Their grandiose,
crescendoing repetitions -
a therapeutic music -
a symphony of
complex tones:
rattle, hum, buzz and siren.

Cicadas! Their mating calls
ringing through the
hot, humid vapor of dusk
as fireflies blink long,
luminous flashes hovering
languidly amidst the
balmy evening of song.

How dull our summer would be
if not adorned by music
and the shows of these
blessed little lives.
I celebrate them with
the peak of summer vitality!

Cicadas. Mad, little creatures,
sirens of good fortune -
the great song of summer,
music of the land and season
Sacred, small and loud.

Cicadas. Soon passing song
to the choir of crickets and
all the katydids of the night.