Thin fog, or just very thick humidity? But it’s still cool enough to enjoy the slanting sunbeams, the tired-sounding cicadas, the catbird’s jazz.
periodical cicadas
Day three of the heat wave. The cicadas have been calling since before dawn. Two goldfinches yellower than the sun come chittering out of the treetops and swoop past the porch.
Breezy and clear. A cicada lands on the chair beside me and emits a brief, mechanical purr, red eyes glowing like the lights on an ambulance, before flying directly into a railing, dropping to the floor and relaunching into the yard.
Breezy and cool—a front at last. A train keens in the distance. The whispery discourse of trees in which cicadas have lapsed for a few long moments into silence.
Rain and fog. I’m beginning to feel sorry for the 17-year cicadas whose one summer in the sun has so far been so sodden. I watch one go motoring past, wings mirroring the white sky.
The white noise of cicadas gives voice to the fog. I spot a second-year common mullein just beginning to raise her flagpole, velvety leaves wearing coats of cloud.
An intensely green lushness makes an orphan out of the brown pile of juniper cuttings at the woods’ edge—last winter’s one spot of green. At 7:10, in the pouring rain, the first cicada starts up.
Breezy and cool. A brown moth flutters into the last of the dame’s-rocket. Sunlight glints on the isinglass wings of a cicada heading for the treetops.
Occasional glimpses of sun. The first periodical cicadas began singing at sunrise, and by midmorning it’s a kind of high, ceaseless static—as if they’re relaying transmissions from the cosmos.
Occasional glimpses of sun. The first periodical cicadas began singing at sunrise, and by midmorning it’s a kind of high, ceaseless static—as if they’re relaying transmissions from the cosmos.
Faint sun through an ash-white sky. I picture a history of human civilization from the point-of-view of periodical cicadas, emerging from the ground every 17 years to scream.
Sunrise hidden by fog, but already there’s a background buzz of periodical cicadas. A cerulean warbler sings at the woods’ edge, as usual, long after the wood thrush has lapsed into silence.