Monday, September 5, 2011

The cicadas have gone

The cicadas have gone



The air stops buzzing with

the first cool whisper of fall.


The wall of voices is silenced,

leaving only the faint scuttle

of leaves swept across the

concrete by my boots.


Gone is the throttle of wings

constant as the sound of my pulse:

usually imperceptible, but

impossible to ignore once noticed.


The silence won’t last.

The song of a thousand

drunken violins

does not simply die

with the coming of fall.


In 17 years the offspring of

this summer’s cicadas will emerge

from the dirt. They will pick up the

song where their parents left off.

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