Seventeen Year Cicada<\/p>\n
This is the year they break through once again,
\nseventeen years as nymphs underground
\nwill come to an end.
\nTheir years long, dark preparation,
\nfeeding on the roots of their life giving trees,
\nwill cease when they burst their way forth
\ninto the light.
\nThey will shed their nymph skins,
\npump blood into new wings,
\nand screech en masse for a mate,
\nonly to produce their eggs
\nand die, a bountiful feast for the birds.<\/p>\n
Four times they’ve appeared in my life,
\nas a newborn, at seventeen,
\nat thirty-four, and now at fifty-one.
\nI can be forgiven for not remembering the first,
\nbut their coming warms me with memories once again.<\/p>\n
At seventeen, I anticipated the last year of high school ahead,
\na summer of shimmering promise obscuring the horizon beyond.
\nAt thirty-four, I was a young mother shepherding my daughter through
\nsummer camp, marveling at the massed singing insects in the trees.
\nAt fifty-one, I am settled and content within my skin at last,
\ngrown children and small grandchild with me in the home I will be in until I die.<\/p>\n
I step out the back door and clinging warmth surrounds my chilled body,
\nsun on my scalp and shoulders,
\ncicadas singing their susurrating song once again.
\nI close my eyes in gratitude, and step back inside.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":308,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/308"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92473"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104242,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92473\/revisions\/104242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}