The Cicadas of 2004

The Cicadas of 2004

You can smell their bodies rotting.
A humid smell
of kitchen garbage about to offend,
inspiring its removal to the 45-gallon
plastic garbage can
with a lid that fits
like a fighter pilot’s helmet.

While the odor isn’t overwhelming,
I do check myself.

The pulsating decibels
and layers of cicadas at this moment
resemble metallic rings of color
in a rainbow
still clinging to the ragged,
pea-soup shirttail
of an abusive tornado.

There’s this tremendous rattling
of beads.

Ten billion rattlesnakes
stirring from hibernation.

The whole thing resembles
a universal pulse,
although no such pulse
has ever existed.

Two mockingbirds manage to sneak
through their serrated
  discontents.

The occasional oriole sends his
quick loop through a brief lull,
but not much else penetrates
this thick living wall
this ecstatic chanting
that first inspired Aztec myths.

And that omnipresent din deep
in the background,
the sound of flying saucers
from 1950’s science fiction films,
having appeared docile at first
then advancing
the way rumors of the Mongol hordes
terrorized the sophisticated clergies
of 12th Century
  Europe.

But, today, these cicadas,
through mythological gills
filter the most beautiful atoms
the universe has ever
  produced:
the atoms of Jesus, Blake, Gandhi, Neruda.


Alan Britt © 2009

Posted over on The Recusant