What the Cicada Sees

Photo by Adam Cai on Unsplash

Where I live, the Brood X cicadas are just about done with their time here. Every morning, the hum is quieter, there are fewer of them moving about the sidewalks in that stunned way they have. I got to wondering what the world looks like from their perspective, when they see above ground only every 17 years. How would they assess our care for the planet?

1987

I see your world shifting

as we emerge.

There is a feeling of prosperity --

for some --

you think our red eyes are blind

not nearly as blind as yours.

You lean into the rumble of your progress

while despair trickles down

in the places you won't turn to.

2004

Ah, so many of our spaces are gone.

So many of us crumbled over

in your flat-lawned shadeless subdivisions.

Your eyes are like a newborn's --

wet and clouded,

starting to see the edges of things,

unable to handle the fullness of what is --

for now.

2021

We emerged at the same time, you and I.

It was maybe too much to think that

our shared freedom could connect our hearts.

Do you think you hear anger in our collective thrum?

Perhaps you do.

Perhaps you only hear the echoes of your own awareness

of what you have created in these years.