Cicada Summer Songtext
von ilyAIMY
Cicada Summer Songtext
One syllable each
Every year in the earth
Cicada haiku
This was our cicada summer
When we could not escape their desperate humming
And the daytime heat roasted the honeysuckles
So at night the air smelled thick and sweet
Glass sparkled and steamed in the Baltimore street
Under a perpetually sherbet sky
On my way into the city, I murdered quite a few
As they flew right into my car like tumbleweeds
Frail as paper, so unimportant, why would I swerve to avoid them?
Still, flinching with each flat thud against my windshield
Trying to feel only proportionately guilty
Until I picked up a hitchhiker on my driver′s side mirror
The wind kept whipping him mercilessly, though he sought shelter
Blowing his wings at unforgiving angles that made me shiver and wince
Cringing from my shoulder blades and feeling sympathy pains
Though I am so far from wings
Until, not wanting to watch it rip away
I was doing thirty on the highway
And had to laugh as I prayed
God, can't I just have this one to save?
Funny how it′s different when there's just one
When you can't help but connect with that last desperate flutter
That final deep breath
At that level where it doesn′t seem to matter
That it′s only just an insect
Because a lot of cicadas are just noise
But one is more like a vocalist
Singing the only song he's ever known
Like the one who saved the Greek, Eunomos
By landing on his broken instrument
And belting out his Gods-given tune in seventeen succinct notes
His haiku went something like
Dad left me orphaned
With only this song of his
To sing like Grampa
Because a lot of cicadas are just noise
But I know one is more like a poet
Who just wants to recite his haiku
Begging you to find the letters hidden in its wings
"W" for war
"P" for peace
Tell me what this year will bring
It′s said cicadas were once men
Who loved music so much it was their only obsession
Their only sustenance
Until their hands were as thin as twigs
And their hearts so full of beauty
It threatened to crack their chests wide open
The Muses took notice
Gave the frail bodies wings, made them their servants
Messengers to report on the world of men
And the art we should be creating
And maybe this messenger on my mirror
Is reminding me that there is a poem
I haven't finished in more than a year
These are ugly angels
And yet how many angels
Have to dig their way up from hell for redemption?
Eyes bloodshot from straining to see Heaven
Body dark from the soot and the Earth you′d been digging
Arms whittled to sticks from the scrapes and the bruising
Losing your memory with each handful of dirt
Until only the pursuit of the light is what's driving you up
Praying you don′t die before you reach the top
And how easy it would be to just give up, stop
Stay in the earth, skipping birth and burial
But you can't
Because all this time you've been dreaming of wings
Golden, paper-thin forgiveness
Shimmering like fresh-cleaned stained glass
So fragile, so fresh, so gently given
They almost look wrong on that body
You′re trying to drag into Heaven
This was our cicada summer
And as so many lives flickered around us, dying out
We should count ourselves lucky that, though earth-bound
We are not yet in it
And our lives are not lived to reproduce and die
Breeding and leaving our abbreviated legacies to fly
And as he passed
The summer′s last cicada spent a precious moment in my hair
To hum his haiku in my ear and die
How we envy you
That you have time to compose
More than just three lines
Every year in the earth
Cicada haiku
This was our cicada summer
When we could not escape their desperate humming
And the daytime heat roasted the honeysuckles
So at night the air smelled thick and sweet
Glass sparkled and steamed in the Baltimore street
Under a perpetually sherbet sky
On my way into the city, I murdered quite a few
As they flew right into my car like tumbleweeds
Frail as paper, so unimportant, why would I swerve to avoid them?
Still, flinching with each flat thud against my windshield
Trying to feel only proportionately guilty
Until I picked up a hitchhiker on my driver′s side mirror
The wind kept whipping him mercilessly, though he sought shelter
Blowing his wings at unforgiving angles that made me shiver and wince
Cringing from my shoulder blades and feeling sympathy pains
Though I am so far from wings
Until, not wanting to watch it rip away
I was doing thirty on the highway
And had to laugh as I prayed
God, can't I just have this one to save?
Funny how it′s different when there's just one
When you can't help but connect with that last desperate flutter
That final deep breath
At that level where it doesn′t seem to matter
That it′s only just an insect
Because a lot of cicadas are just noise
But one is more like a vocalist
Singing the only song he's ever known
Like the one who saved the Greek, Eunomos
By landing on his broken instrument
And belting out his Gods-given tune in seventeen succinct notes
His haiku went something like
Dad left me orphaned
With only this song of his
To sing like Grampa
Because a lot of cicadas are just noise
But I know one is more like a poet
Who just wants to recite his haiku
Begging you to find the letters hidden in its wings
"W" for war
"P" for peace
Tell me what this year will bring
It′s said cicadas were once men
Who loved music so much it was their only obsession
Their only sustenance
Until their hands were as thin as twigs
And their hearts so full of beauty
It threatened to crack their chests wide open
The Muses took notice
Gave the frail bodies wings, made them their servants
Messengers to report on the world of men
And the art we should be creating
And maybe this messenger on my mirror
Is reminding me that there is a poem
I haven't finished in more than a year
These are ugly angels
And yet how many angels
Have to dig their way up from hell for redemption?
Eyes bloodshot from straining to see Heaven
Body dark from the soot and the Earth you′d been digging
Arms whittled to sticks from the scrapes and the bruising
Losing your memory with each handful of dirt
Until only the pursuit of the light is what's driving you up
Praying you don′t die before you reach the top
And how easy it would be to just give up, stop
Stay in the earth, skipping birth and burial
But you can't
Because all this time you've been dreaming of wings
Golden, paper-thin forgiveness
Shimmering like fresh-cleaned stained glass
So fragile, so fresh, so gently given
They almost look wrong on that body
You′re trying to drag into Heaven
This was our cicada summer
And as so many lives flickered around us, dying out
We should count ourselves lucky that, though earth-bound
We are not yet in it
And our lives are not lived to reproduce and die
Breeding and leaving our abbreviated legacies to fly
And as he passed
The summer′s last cicada spent a precious moment in my hair
To hum his haiku in my ear and die
How we envy you
That you have time to compose
More than just three lines
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