Cicada People

Cicada People

Cicada sings and then stops—caesura;

then slips back into the throbbing vein of song

after the winds of danger have passed.

Once beneath a dawn

Cicada People sang hymns of praise and wonder

for the muses, who had brought poetry

like a new kind of honey

down from wild mountain caves

to disburse it amongst humankind.

The Cicada People loved poetry’s flavor

better than water, more than meat;

they forgot to drink, forgot to eat.

Once the unfed flesh had sloughed from their bones

and they had merged with the silent hum that awaits the end

of each life-song,

the gods rewarded their restless longing

by changing them into stridulating insects.

They became the first poets.

Now in our times of heartloss, beauty-loss, meaning-loss and soulshock,

in nations gone dark and blind for lack of poet light,

what better garment to wrap our modern minstrels in than these

staccato gowns the seasons weave out of cicada wings?

What better song to sing than their long-enduring summer anthem?

And what better way to sing than as they do,

the ones who became and still remain the long-vibrating poem?

Cicada sings—then stops…

and then stirs up the deep song again.