August in Cicadia

Greg Tonian, 2017

“When I leave this world behind me, to another I will go, and if there are no pipes in heaven, I’ll be going down below”

Mark Knopfler

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It’s August in Cicadia,
The neighborhood is abuzz.
A hot, sultry breeze,
Envelops the trees.
Brown, papier mache creatures climb out of the loam,
Clinging to brick and branch with tiny hooks,
Soon to cleave asunder,
Extruding,
winged phantasms.
I find these abandoned climbing nymph husks,
And the fanciful flying creatures that they set free
Scattered on the concrete byways of Cicadia.
“Sweet dreams and” Flying “machines in pieces on the ground” (James Taylor),
I think to myself.

Despite the deep freeze of February and the wet Spring,
The Cicadas returned, 
As they do each summer.
As the temperatures surge,
The climbing nymphs emerge,
the thrumming sound of male cicadas 
fills the heavy air.
If Da Vinci had only known,
What delight these creatures would have brought him.
To study and emulate:
Mylar wings,
Armored bodies,
Beady, onyx eyes,
Vibrating belly plates,
Scimitar toes;
Needle-like probosci.
Wonders of flight and musicology.

Tibicens superba,
The superb piper,
Summer dog days serenader,
Wooing a lover.
Thrumming, humming, coupling.

It is dawn again in Cicadia,
As I head out on another sidewalk survey,
Bonny and Molly in tow,
the sky dome is robin egg blue, 
the perfect white clouds glow ethereally,
tinged in pink,
A Poussin canvas.

Gracefully soaring above,
Surveying the treetops,
I spot the kites,
Tuxedoed in sublime grey,
Obsidian-edged beaks and claws.
They swoop to and fro,
Feathers flaring in the updrafts,
Listening for that familiar Geiger counter drone,
Watching for whirring, winged, windup toy invaders,
Yawing downward,
Rising again,
Cradling a buzzing breakfast.

At the end of my rounds now,
I approach the home-office,
Yet something appears entangled in the Bermuda.
I lift the exhausted troubadour.
It clings urgently to my fingers,
Vibrating weekly,
Its wings folded.
I perch it on a branch, knowing that he has reached the end of an all too brief,
Yet cacophonous, productive journey.
I bid him adieu and listen,
Am comforted,
By the familiar sounds of August in Cicadia