Summer Rhythms

In the early morning I awake
To the sound of cicadas
Stirring the August air
With their electric pulse.
The chattering chorus moves
From tree to tree; now in
Hushed and ominous rattles,
Like thousands of castanets,
Now in violent crescendos,
Torrents of angry clatter
Thrashing the muddy sky.

After a long inchoate sleep
Subterraneanly suspended,
They burst into the blazing day.
From under leaf and branch
They commune unseen,
In silent murmur and savage raving,
From dawn to dusk
Their tribal secrets
Make the sunlight shimmer.

They greet each new summer
With the same ancient ritual;
After long years entombed
They crawl from their crypts,
Mate and deposit their progeny
Which emerge at the same interval
To begin the cycle again.

The cicadas slowly slice
Through summer skies,
Their relentless buzz
Trims light from every day
And with the waning sun
Their fury boils
As if they know
Their end is near at hand.

High up, heavy with cicadas,
The trees gently sway
In the summer breeze.
As they move to and fro
On the face of the day,
Their gauzy winged dwellers
Cast circles of sound
That spread over the sky
Before dying away;
Endless whispered turnings.