Seventeen Year Cicada
This is the year they break through once again,
seventeen years as nymphs underground
will come to an end.
Their years long, dark preparation,
feeding on the roots of their life giving trees,
will cease when they burst their way forth
into the light.
They will shed their nymph skins,
pump blood into new wings,
and screech en masse for a mate,
only to produce their eggs
and die, a bountiful feast for the birds.
Four times they’ve appeared in my life,
as a newborn, at seventeen,
at thirty-four, and now at fifty-one.
I can be forgiven for not remembering the first,
but their coming warms me with memories once again.
At seventeen, I anticipated the last year of high school ahead,
a summer of shimmering promise obscuring the horizon beyond.
At thirty-four, I was a young mother shepherding my daughter through
summer camp, marveling at the massed singing insects in the trees.
At fifty-one, I am settled and content within my skin at last,
grown children and small grandchild with me in the home I will be in until I die.
I step out the back door and clinging warmth surrounds my chilled body,
sun on my scalp and shoulders,
cicadas singing their susurrating song once again.
I close my eyes in gratitude, and step back inside.
I love this, measuring your life in cicada cycles.
Thank you! I didn’t expect to have any comments until we’d all finished, this was a lovely surprise.
I agree! This is a beautiful poem. Your next to last stanza conveys so much, and shimmers with the gratitude you mention in the last lines.
Thank you, that really means a lot to me!
Great piece – the rhythm of the stanzas matches the cyclical nature of the subject. Its got a beat, just like the cicadas. Love the perspective this brings.
I love this retrospective look on life and especially this line: ‘At fifty-one, I am settled and content within my skin at last’. Isn’t susurrating a wonderful word?? And great alliteration!!
Thank you! I’ve always wanted to use the word susurrating in a poem, this just seemed to fit the cicada sound the best. The alliteration was a happy accident, by-product of sleeplessness, I think, lol. Thanks so much for your thoughtful commentary on all three choices I have for the anthology.