Clawing at Air

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CLAWING AT AIR


For months now I have been 

a flipper of cicadas. No lucrative business

but it’s honest work and plenty of it, 

easier than writing and more gratifying than

prayer as you can actually see them 

slingshot from your finger and go 

haphazardly hurtling towards the light. 

Round here they’re everywhere, 

which I read somewhere is because

just about everything loves

to claim cicadas from the air

before they reach higher branches.

So often survival is a numbers game. 

All the same, I still believe

you're the root we’re feeding on, 

Lord, but it's a thin, croaking hope

that you can handle the sheer onslaught

in this brief interval between dawn and husk.


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