Summersound

As I await the awakening of the 17 year cicadas ----and I really am looking forward to them; their sound, along with their less sleepy relatives, and the crickets and fireflies, complete the “Midwestern Summer’s Dream” for me: lying on the porch swing, beer or iced tea and a just-begun book on the table next to me, the hazy sunshine or early twilight and the non-cooling gusts of wind----anyway, as I await the cicadas and their “hamburger-on-a-grill” mating calls, I’ve been thinking about the time period of seventeen years. It really is quite a chunk of time.

The first time I was around for this cycle was 1956 –I was 4 years old. By the next time, 1973, I was 21, there had been 4 presidents, some yaha’s walked on the moon, the Beatles had gotten together and split, my father had died and I had discovered love was not everything they said it was, but sex was more. From 21 to 38 (1990) was probably the smoothest jump: good times, bad times, hello’s and good-bye’s. I discovered sex was not everything but love was mysteriously more. But from then to now was one hell of a ride!! (Use your imagination…)

But here’s the real kicker: The good Lord willing and I’m around---which is no sure bet, of course ---- it will be 2024 and I will be 72!!! You can do the math for your own age, but that should have you looking skyward about now. I love my Mother dearly and she’s in better health than me, but she is 93. If the cicadas get to sing for her 110th trip around the sun, the drinks are on me!!
Seventeen years is more than enough time to lose people we know and gain new ones. [Hello, young Celeste and Andrew!!! Say hello to the cicadas we won’t be around to hear!]

I guess the point of all this is the cicadas are like the rings of the trees---trees we maybe remember as smaller than us and now they give us shade, and, yes, a breeding place for the cicadas.

To paraphrase Dylan Thomas’ “Poem in October”:
O may my heart’s truth
Still be sung
On this high hill in [seventeen years’] turning.