Cicada (Hua Yan), Sonnet #584

Why do birds and insects sing so

Effortlessly, without command,

As though they don’t care if they’re heard?

They tell us something we don’t know

And never try to understand.

I’d ignore the babbling catbird,

Perhaps, if I knew what he said.

The cardinal says “I am red.”

The cricket can’t seem to shut up

Lest I approach and interrupt.

The cicada’s incessant whir,

Like the blare of a small Klaxon,

Is intense and irregular,

An urgent call to inaction.

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My Human Disguise.

 

Cicada (Ruth Diamond-Guerin), Sonnet #370

The cicada shifts the air like a loom.
Its sizzling klaxon rises in repeats,
Insisting on filling the summer’s room
Even as it winds down in lazy beats.
A pause. The shuttle shifts, then starts anew,
Reaching a pitch of pure intensity,
As if sound is the proof immensity
Of seething essence from which all life grew.
In September we see them fly around
Aimlessly, as if they want to be found
And later we do find them, on the ground,
While yet back and forth a few weakly sound.
The patterns in the late October leaves
Are what the now silenced cicada weaves.