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Tag Archives: cicadas


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our promise to walter and irma. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

i want to hold onto the sound. cicadas and crickets on summer nights. it’s a locating sound, and, as i adirondack-chair-sit on the deck listening, i am immersed in it. i can feel it.

we’ve been watching the series “alone” lately. our binges have taken us through to season five, where ten people have been dropped off in desolate mongolia to survive as long as they are able. the sounds are completely different – wolves are howling, deadly snakes hissing, bears rustling through the woods – unnerving sounds. it is beyond my wildest imagination what these people are doing, how they are assimilating into and feeling a part of this environment, how they are sustaining. i would absolutely fail out there.

it does make me think that – indeed – we all have our strengths. as we hiked the other day we talked about how fascinating it is to watch other people and the random abilities they’ve been blessed with. we are simply spokes on the wheel…a giant wheel of universe proportion.

i came across this cicada in our driveway. i was immediately saddened, for it was wandering in a circle and i knew it had little time left on this earth. its beautiful coloring, its giant alien eyes, it captivated me and i gently placed it into the bushes next to the driveway, offering a few words of gratitude for its existence.

one less cicada to sing its nightly song, i know that too soon the night will be quiet and i will miss the sounds i have always associated with the white noise of summer.

i woke up this morning to the sound of walter and irma in our backyard. these are two cardinals that frequent our feeder and hang out on the wires of the garden happy lights or on the top of the fence that stretches across the yard. they are as much a touchstone as our cicadas, but i know they will stay through the fall, through the winter and hopefully will cheerily greet the spring again next year. they have a hard time with our bird feeder because the rim is not big enough for them to perch upon – and because the squirrels do gymnastics emptying it.

we have promised walter and irma a flat feeder – the kind we understand that cardinals prefer. and every time walter flails around on the edge of our current birdfeeder, we imagine that irma is reminding him that someday we will have a different feeder, to hang in there and to stop being overly-dramatic.

i think that someday has arrived.

sometimes it is the simplest of things that bring us the most reassurance. somehow the loss of one more cicada makes me want us to extend to our backyard birds something that will make their ability to sustain a tiny bit easier. they are spokes on our wheel – giving us the grand pleasure of watching them, slowing us down, grounding us.

in the days that we feel like we are in the wilds of mongolia – for we all have days like that – we find things that bolster us, we find things that give us perspective, we find things that make us feel a part of the whole, we find ways to sustain.

i know i will soon miss the cicadas and crickets. i recorded their nightsong on a video and saved it. just in case – in the middle of winter or the wilds of mongolia – i need to feel it.

*****

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the time. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

friends of ours asked if we had cicadas yet. they live a short distance away in illinois and their friends – in another close-by illinois town – have so many cicadas that they cannot sleep at night. we haven’t heard a one. at least not yet.

instead, our nights are quiet. we can hear the gurgle of our pond, maybe a little wind. seems about right for the sweet phase.

dogga wakes us early – this morning his first attempt was at 5 – jumping on the bed for pets and snuggles, he encourages us to get up and put the coffee on. but in those exquisite minutes between slumber and plugging in the cuisinart we can hear the birds greeting the morning, the spoon stirring in a mug through our dear west neighbors’ kitchen window, the quiet strains of symphony as the sun streams in through the window and spills onto our quilt. it’s a tender beginning to a day.

last night was warm – we sat out late after we ate dinner on the deck. sans air conditioning it was warm when we went to sleep. i woke up numerous times through the night…always trying hard not to start thinking – because once i go down that road – the thinking road – i have no real chance at going back to sleep. nevertheless, i went there.

it seems – most times – when you end up on the thinking road it is on autopilot, as if you have no ability to steer. last night, though, i tried to stay in control of the steering wheel. and each time my mind wanted to veer off and ruminate over something else, something of concern, i tried to gently bring it back to my breathing, to the sounds of quiet night, to the feeling of d laying next to me, to the gentle snores of dogga.

i’m pretty sure the cicadas will arrive. i hope so. i don’t know if they will be so loud that i cannot sleep. i’m not too worried. there are plenty of other reasons i don’t sleep. and i have actually been a cicada fan my whole life – i love the summer night sounds of crickets and cicadas and miss those when they disappear in the fall. i try to memorize the sound – until the next season of them. i find both reassuring and pointedly centering – “you are in summer,” they seem to say, “relish it.”

the sweet phase. it’s begun. every day. every night. we are fortunate, no matter what. because we are here. period. this is the time to remember that.

*****

IN THE NIGHT from THIS PART OF THE JOURNEY ©️ 1997, 2000 kerri sherwood

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and wings. [two artists tuesday]

his legs wrapped tightly around the garden fence, the cicada gave in to his time of transformation.

i found him when i was watering. i bent down to pull a weed by the low fencing and there he was, clinging with all his might to the thin metal frame, following his call of nature, nymph to adult. the transition is recognizable. the two creatures look remarkably different, so it is easy to tell which is the mature cicada.

it’s the second time we have been witness to part of the cicada’s metamorphosis. the first time the cicada was clinging to the deck and we watched the whole fascinating process. this time, we came upon the cicada after it had shed its old skin, the outer exoskeleton having molted off into the dirt. both were profound for us. the giving over, the trusting of transformation, gaining wings, going on into next as something quite different.

“life is not so much about beginnings and endings as it is about going on and on and on. it is about muddling through the middle.” (anna quindlen)

and in the middle, the holding on. legs – and arms – wrapped around the garden fence of our lives, clutching for dear life. to be in the middle – sorting and pondering, full of wonder and angst – we can only trust that each next will arrive, that the on and on will not betray us, that we will not betray the on and on. the cicada surrenders, relinquishes any worry of what is to come.

and then, it wakes soon after, having pushed its way through the deadened shell. with wings. wings! exuberant noise fills the summer air. i know i will listen for our garden-fence-cicada on hot nights when the sun is setting and dusk is on the sky.

and we – in our metamorphosis from one day to another – sorting and pondering on our fence – begin to know that wings are possible. we learn that we have had them all along. we untuck them, test them out, flex a little, grow stronger. and we are astounded to learn – like the cicada – that we can fly.

“i want to be light and frolicsome. i want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing, as though i had wings.” (mary oliver)

*****

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momma birds. [k.s. friday]

the cicadas are loud outside already. the windows are open and, though it will be ridiculously hot today, tomorrow will be their field day. it’s the end of august and, no matter who i speak to, the common marvel is how quickly summer has passed. a dear friend wrote to me, “it is the clove of seasons.”

i was behind him at office max. waiting in line six feet back, he was checking out. the checkout gal was pleasant but uninterested as the enthusiastic dad chortled about how his wife had forgotten to buy sharpened pencils for their children going back to school. he asked for separate bags so that he might bring them home to his kids in individual packages to add to their school supplies. he was excited, so excited, telling anyone within earshot of his errand to finish up prepping for the beginning of the school year. i couldn’t help but smile back as he walked past me with an elated look on his face.

i checked out and intended for the exit. it was the backpacks that got me first. the big four-sided display drew me over. there was this great floral backpack. . .

i started to wander a bit more, the calendars and notebooks and mechanical pencils making me wistful. stickynotes and highlighters and packs of gel-tip pens and fine-line sharpies beckoning.

these people knew how to place things in the store. i was not quite leaving.

i was catapulted back in time and meandered a little lost in thought about days – years – gone by, an empty nester’s trap of remembering with both joy and sorrow. all those years of school lists and target runs and picking out backpacks and first day of school walgreen’s or back-to-target fill-ins, things we hadn’t anticipated needing or somehow forgot. the piles on the dining room table as my beloved girl and boy selected their supplies and maybe their pencil case. they put looseleaf paper in their trapper-keepers and loaded up spiral notebooks and the required box of tissues, a few dry erase markers, a ruler and maybe a calculator. absolutely heavenly to be surrounded by school materials, stationery supplies, new reusable lunchbags and two mostly-excited children.

this time of year does it every time. even though it is extraordinarily hot i can feel it knocking. and i can feel the sadness of letting go of summer freedoms, of children, late-morning, still in pjs, of no alarm clocks and no dread of early morning crabbies. i can feel the elation of the bus arriving at the end of the day or sitting outside the school watching for a glimpse of my own beautiful children in a throng of beautiful children.

every year i feel it. that feeling watching them walk out the door to go to school, to go to college, to go into the world. even now i am immersed in it. i miss them.

i’m sure the momma bird was elated too when the eggshell cracked open and her tiny baby bird was born. she probably chortled to her bird-friends about her little miracle and its entrance into life. and then, after a time, bird-school over, she realized she was suddenly an empty-nester, her sweetest with wings that would carry it into the world to adventure and explore and conquer abounding opportunities. though the nest would remain, and would always be there, rooting and rooting, both, it was merely a launching pad to everything else.

and one day, as she was waiting in line at office max, as tears threatened to roll down her face, she would be grateful for all those times before and she would wrap herself in the memorized feel of freshly-sharpened pencils, late-summer cicadas and small hands in hers.

*****

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GIVE ME ROOTS, GIVE THEM WINGS from RELEASED FROM THE HEART ©️ 1995 kerri sherwood


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cicadas and people. [k.s. friday]

the cicada was silent, attached to the deck. it was late spring/early summer of 2015 and this insect had chosen our deck as its place of transition. we watched the shell, cautious to not disturb it, waiting for something to happen. until one day it began to emerge, looking much like an extra-terrestrial, wings of flight opening and drying in the sun of the warm day. it was a stunning process from nymph to adult, all silent, with no fanfare for this remarkable transformation. suddenly, this little being was present on the earth, ready to make some noise.

silence to noise – a transition from nymph to mature adult. a lesson, perhaps, for humanity.

our progression from without-words nymph-baby to with-a-voice mature adult, a transformation of growth, of learning, of critical thinking, of fortitude. as cicadas raise their voices to the sky, buzzing and clicking, choosing their song, their chorus wisely, they answer an intuitive call, they align in truth to their purpose, their place on earth. much the same perhaps should be mature adults – answering an intuitive call, choosing their song or chorus wisely, aligning in truth.

there are times we find ourselves in hush. stunned into silence by the words or actions of others, we sit, ensconced in the shell of our exoskeleton. we wait and we watch. and then, as we rise as winged and responsible people, we have the opportunity, the obligation, to speak – to speak up, speak out, speak for, speak against, speak to truth.

perhaps there are adults who have skipped their instar stages, those phases of development that insects pass through on their way to maturity. perhaps they should have lived underground like cicadas, feeding on roots, a bit longer before they emerged, before they walked on an earth where they felt they could use their words to hurt or harm others. perhaps then, after a slow transition into maturation and with no fanfare, they would choose their buzzing and ticking with more forethought, with more compassion, with more honesty, with more wisdom.

*****

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IN TRANSITION from RELEASED FROM THE HEART ©️ 1995 kerri sherwood