The Cicada Song

By Patrick J. Walsh

Walking in the park near twilight in these early days of Spring, when the shadows stretch deeply onto the far bank of the pond, it is difficult to miss the odd humming sound in the air.

The unmistakable murmur of cicadas in the midst of their mating ritual, the droning buzz rushes out across the surface of the water like a swarm of bees passing through a hollow log.

 

It is an evocative music, the cicada song. For the wanderer in the park, it recalls magical nights of summers long past, and the hidden joy of sudden encounters with the living presence of nature in the midst of a warm summer's evening.

In the case of the insects themselves, however, the humming represents the soundtrack of a brief, remarkable cycle of life that bespeaks both the wisdom and the wonder of nature's strange logic.

While "annual" varieties of cicadas appear every year, the particular insects now in the park are most probably of the Magicicada genus — the so-called "periodical" cicadas.

These cicadas live underground for a period of 13 or 17 years, and then emerge in massive numbers for a brief mating period before they die, leaving their progeny to begin again the long cycle of nurture underground.

The sound of the cicada's song is produced by the rapid vibration of membranes on the insect's abdomen. The vibration of the membranes, which are properly known as tymbals, produces a chirping that is then amplified by chambers within the creature's respiratory system. Male cicadas "sing" the song in large choruses to attract females.

In accordance with the science of the identification system devised by entomologist C. L. Marlatt in 1907, the insects in the park are most likely Brood II cicadas, of the 17-year variety.

It is the poetry of their appearance, however, that leaves a lasting impression. After 17 years underground — a period in which the human world routinely sees the utter transformation of leading personalities and technologies and societies — these tiny creatures struggle upward through a foot or more of soil to emerge, all at once, in the still-chilly air of the early hintings of summer.

They spend their brief time on the surface in the pursuit of a mate, in the interest of ensuring the propagation of their species. Then, after a period of several weeks to several months, their course is run, and their song withers to the last few chirrups of those who remain at the end, like the sound of a valiant heart drumming its last in the moments before death.

As all falls silent, the purpose of the cicadas' brief time on the surface is accomplished in the production and hatching of their eggs, ensuring the promise of a new generation.

The newborn nymphs fall like raindrops from the twigs where the eggs were laid, and upon landing on grass or soil, they burrow downward, to begin another long cycle of life underground.

Meanwhile, their song sung, the adult cicadas die off. The tone and timbre of their particular sound vanishes once more from the landscape, hidden away in the dust of the Earth and the promise of their descendants, not to be heard again until the first chilly days of Spring, 17 years on...

© Patrick J. Walsh

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The Song of Summer

By Patrick J. Walsh

Tentative, faint; echoing in the sweetness of the memories they invoke and aching in the evanescent traces of the comfort they promise, the sounds of summer are in the park these days.

This is the first of Spring, in its early bloom, when the weather routinely betrays the best impulses of the seasons.

Surfaced from memory, whispers of bright, gentle mornings and soft afternoons tug at my tired soul, and I pull my jacket close against the coolness of the day.

As I set out, the weak, scattered sunlight shares only a hollow warmth. Farther along, I wander beneath clouds heavy with rain, and crosswinds jostle at my arms and legs, indifferent to my progress.

In the open area near the lake, the sputtering folds of wind recall the "hup-hup-hup" of a little boy approximating a primitive flute by blowing across the neck of an open soda bottle.

On the far side of the water, in the chill darkness beneath the cover of the canopy of trees, the cicadas are fooled into an early burst of song.

Their staccato melody echoes across the windy surface of the lake like an invocation, bringing golden remembrance of the hushed tones of quiet exchanges in the twilight of warm days past.

There is not yet the flutter of leaves on branches touched by the tiny limbs of birds; nor is there the bright splash of a fish struggling down the stream toward the lake; nor the hum of insects flashing along the trail at the edge of the paved road.

But there are the sounds of ancient campfires: the pop and hiss of burning twigs, their tiny flames nurtured by the coaxing breath of some long ago mother or father, while the squeals of delighted children echo nearby.

And with my eyes gently closed, paused in my forward progress by some intimation of welcome, I hear the murmur of the woods calling out through the sultry stillness of a summer night, and the wordless yearning of a wish made in silence at the sight of a star falling from the summer sky.

In the park, on a chilly day in Spring, the cicadas hum, and in the breath of the wind, I hear the sounds of summer.

© Patrick J. Walsh

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