Cicada Song

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CICADA SONG

— for my sophomores; stay “wise fools” forever



Impossible to ignore you

this time of year, cicadas 

and seniors. Roughly seventeen 

years to prepare and then suddenly 

you’re there, red-eyed and hungry

for wings if only keenly aware 

that everything else is hungry too

and likes the taste of you. 


No expert here, but survival 

seems to entail finding a firm tree 

to cling to, a willingness 

to vanish into a song far bigger than 

the single note of a self, and then, 

eventually, a slow emergence

as you leave behind your hollow shell, 


joining the rest of us as we make 

our lilting way to light, 

the old world both haunted 

and hallowed with our husks.


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