Towards the End of Spring, When We All Get Used to Living Again
“Somehow, someway, it all comes alive again,
From contingency being grows wings to fly,
Always becoming what it might have been,
But i get sad when cicadas die.
Yes, there are millions of them, and they all look the same.
They’re dumb and can’t see very well.
They’re loud and can get in the way.
But oh, if they don’t sound the much needed bell
That the day of judgement has arrived.
When we’re all called to step out our graves.
When sir brother sun has us reaching for that denied
Desire to which we all must be a slave:
To live! And they have it too.
They waited underground unlike me and you
To see what was promised for 17 years blind.
Imagine, what do you have in mind
In terms of what it must be like to emerge
And at once see it all, to gain wings and go
Up as high as you can simply to perch
And sing so loud you don’t even know
How loud you are
To those below?
Near and far
High and low
A mile away can you sing!
Can hear the product of your triumph and work,
Can hear the living tolls of spring,
Can hear the alarm, life alert.
And we were blessed to have the advantage
That these angels are only benign.
How, of all, did we manage
To not have the xylem that they like?
We can be friends with them, unlike so many others
Who bite or scratch or sting at us,
And wouldn’t you be sad if one of your friend’s mothers
Went out for a stroll and got hit by a bus?
Alas, they are massacred and hated for it.
Their corpses litter the ground and the street.
You confound them with your automobiles and concrete,
And you all get off on your privilege to ignore it
Your profit seeking soul refuses to see;
They sing up there all day for free
And i lost some trees, and i loved some plants,
And i loved sometimes to go and dance,
But we all have those we never gave a chance.
I, like everyone else, step on the ants.”