Cicada wing. Kristine Paulus. CC BY
A hymn, of sorts, on hearing one of my favorite sounds for the last time this year—it echoes from idyllic childhood summers and the country roads of my ancestral homeplace. A strangely sacred sound, it always lifts my spirits and aches in my soul at the same time.
∞
High in the oaks
against the bluest of skies
the rattling swells
as its season dies.
An oxymoron
this buzzing call
from amid the leaves
soon to fall.
This song of my childhood
lingering still
in the last of the light
before the chill.
Full force, the cicada sings
—doesn’t it know?—
summer’s gone on the wings
of a song long ago.
***
lit bits and pieces 
Fran, this is so beautiful. The imagery and rhythm weave perfectly together. I will be sure to listen a bit more closely this week. Thank you for this start to my day.
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We hear the cicadas loud and strong here, too. It is a jarring sound for me; your poem has given me a different perspective, tying it to the seasonal changes. I’ll listen to their song with a bit more thought the next time .
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It IS a jarring sound! The emotional pull for me comes from lovely associations of childhood, summer, the countryside, grandparents, love, and belonging. This loud, discordant sound is the male mating call… it’s about life and generations. One by one the calls stop and there’s an inherent sadness in it for me, the waning of life with the summer, intermingled with memories of my golden days of childhood. There’s both comfort and loss in it for me. I love the sound.
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A beautiful poem. We have such loud cicada song that it’s hard not to notice, but somehow in the busyness of back to school and all, I’ve failed to notice the absence of it.
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We have loud cicadas here too! I wonder if their lifespan is different here because of the endless summer. Your poem made me mourn the changing of seasons.
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I was mourning, too – there’s a loss in that last rattle.
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Fran, your cicada song poem lulls me back into the memory of summer days as fall has turned a corner. I would love to showcase this in my Embraceable Summer Gallery that I am working on now. The poem’s descriptive language and rhythm work so well into transitioning us into a state of seasonal bliss.
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Thank you, Carol – I’d be honored for you to share my poem in your summer gallery!
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So beautiful…the changing season tug at my heart. Hard to see another summer pass by, although since I’ve been back to work, it feels like summer is a memory. Thank you for such a beautiful poem!
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I’d like to keep the cicada’s song around for a WHILE longer so that summer stays around. I love the the rattling swells. Those aren’t words I would normally put together, but isn’t that what poets do? Beautiful, Fran!
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What a beautiful poem to mark the end of a summer. I especially loved: “This song of my childhood lingering still in the last of the light before the chill.”
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I love that sound, s strong in my own childhood as well. Beautifully written
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