The Song of the Cicadas

“Someone shot the cat lady.” he says, standing in the doorway.

“Okay.” I say.  I assume it has to be about the tv.  I wait.  He leaves.  I plop a tea bag and soup spoon into my cat cup of hot water, and scurry back into the cat’s den… my writing room.

As I get cozy with the three pillows piled onto my armchair, cat Austin makes his entrance as if he is telepathic.  Without asking, he curls tightly into the triangular area of my left bent arm, making air biscuits.

It's a surreal feeling that my life isn't any more important than I think it is; but apparently, I think I'm extremely important, as I put up quite a struggle to keep myself from sinking underground and becoming fertilizer for my garden.

After one malady is under control, another one forces itself upon me.  There was a time when I told my family I wanted to live to be 100 years old.  What a dreamer I was.  A talk with my sister last night sunk me to rock bottom, as she described the last years of mom's life with her.  

Mom's leg problems are my leg problems.  So much for the surreal.  I would have loved to have dreamed a bit longer... but, it is what it is.  Is it better to not know?  Oh, to dabble one's toes in hell while others fly up, up, up into the heavens... who knows.

Cicadas!

They're a hot topic at the moment, as each group crescendos in unison, then decrescendos half way, then back up again, then down again to almost nothing.  Of course, they never stay at nothing if its a mildly cool sunny day.  They have little time to mate before death claims them back into earths fold where they were once nurtured.

The emergence of this brood XIX, 13 years in the ground creatures, cannot be missed no matter how hard one may try.  Yesterday I stood on the deck and thought how beautiful they sound in the distance.  Today the noise is mind boggling as they fill the trees in my own yard.

This cicada does not have good looks going for it with those freaky orange eyes and legs that seem to repel people who are not one with nature, but their importance should not be dimished by this.  They are nature's offering to aerate the soil, feed the species, and fertilizer the earth.

Their wings are sublime beauty, as if delicate stained glass, and a bit of sadness will linger as the last ones drop back to the earth, and disappear for years to come.  It's life, isn't it... it gives and it takes back.

Just another reminder of our loss of Dustin.  We never realized how many cicadas of this brood fed our dog.  We thought not too many, as I spied him catch a few as they flew by or landed on the patio; but apparently tons upon tons, as we have to sweep the dead ones up daily, when ten years ago, we rarely had to bother.

A short post today, as life's been a bitch lately.  Not too many photos, as Vic must hold onto me when I'm out in the garden photographing.  On the patio, I'm much better with my balance.  The following poem is more about the summer cicadas, but we get those also.

The Song Of The Cicadas

     by Roderic Quinn

          an Australian Poet

Yesterday there came to me
from a green and graceful tree
as I loitered listlessly
nothing doing, nothing caring,
light and warmth and fragrance sharing
with the butterfly and the bee,
while the sapling-tops a-glisten
danced and trembled, wild and willing
such a sudden sylvan shrilling
that I could not choose but listen.

Green cicadas, black cicadas,
happy in the gracious weather,
floury-baker, double-drummer,
all as one and all together,
how they voiced the golden summer.

Stealing back there came to me
as I loitered listlessly
'neath the green and graceful tree,
nothing doing, nothing caring,
boyhood moments spent in sharing
with the butterfly and the bee
youth and freedom, warmth and glamour
while cicadas round me shrilling,
set the sleepy noontide thrilling
with their keen insistent clamour.

Green cicadas, black cicadas,
happy in the gracious weather
Floury-bakers, double-drummers
all as one and all together --
how they voice the bygone summers!

Fleabane

This seeds everywhere, but it does not overpower any other plant.

People look at it as a problematic weed, but I just see beauty.

It dies down and eventually disappears after blooming .

Baptisia Purple Smoke

I ignore them and they do fine.

Early winter when the stems detach at ground level,

the wind will blow them across the yard all intertwined,

much like a tumbleweed.

Lyre Leaf Sage

Maianthemum racemosum, False Solomon's Seal

Flowers turn into pretty berries for wildlife

I no longer have my garden notes, 

but I think this is 'Cardinal de Richelieu' a gallica rose.

We dug it up years ago, but a sucker survived

and is slowly expanding.  It seems to blend in well with the grasses.

Few thorns, but it's in an area I cannot reach.

A Jumping Spider

Clematis Venosa Violacea

On a ride from the doctor's office

In the weed patch

Cicadas on Pachysandra procumbens, Allegheny Spurge

Cidada emerging from it's hard exoskeleton,

so it's wings will unfold and dry out.

After that it will drop to the ground 

and head for the nearest tree or shrub.

Some will have problems with their molting and die. 

Exoskeletons

Clematis viorna, I think

A leather Leaf type of native clematis.

I don't feel well enough to try and identify these muchrooms.

I always enjoy seeing them.

What a marvel!

My babies - Austin and Charlotte

This Post is Linked to:

My Corner of the World

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day

Saturday's Critters

Frayed Around The Edges

My garden is sometimes a soothing place where I can unwind and just chill… like today.  I stand here after pruning a group of runners on my side of the old blackhaw viburnum when the buzz of wings makes me lift my eyes to see a hummingbird flitting about my head checking me out… then off it goes.

It is also a wild place, where tranquility and turmoil live hand in hand.  While humans have been able to create safe haven for themselves in order to repopulate without much interference of things wanting to eat them, the remainder of nature is still bound to the old ways of producing enough population of their own kind in order to feed the rest of hungry nature and survive beyond extinction.

Personally I think there is no meaning of life, but my life does have meaning.  My compassion and the ability to empathize has given me great purpose, especially when I began to think with conviction.  How great I have become or not become is of little importance to the creatures I have brought into my fold over my lifetime.

I walk my garden in morning, because to walk it in the afternoon would be suicide by mosquito bites.  The air may be a bit heavy, but a cool breeze teases with me, in, and then back out of reach.  Nothing special today.

Flowers are aging, berries are forming, and the cone flowers and phlox are tangled in each other’s arms.  Virginia creeper is clambering up and over the fence faster than we can pull it back down and uproot.  Then there is the new stuff blown in on the wind.  She's a bit frayed around the edges, with the youth of spring long gone.

A new batch of cicadas has left their exoskeleton calling cards attached to the deck posts after they clawed their way through the clay to the surface for their short life above ground.  What determination to complete a journey begun years ago.  I confess that I have found cicada chanting annoyingly irritating, but their love song begins to grow on one after ten or so years.

With the wilting bits of the garden refreshed in moisture from a garden hose, one bids adieu to another August day in the neighborhood, and greets an evening by staying indoors.  This lady will gladly welcome autumn with wide opened arms and a big grin on her face.

Easter Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly on Phlox 'Jeana'

Exoskeleton of cicada

Notice the claws used for digging out of the ground.

 'Hot Lips' Turtlehead, Chelone obliqua

American Bumble Bee with a type of Plant Bug 

Joe Pye Weed and 'Hot Lips' Turtlehead, Chelone obliqua

'Winterthur' Viburnum berries in their greenish white stage,

before turning pink, then blue.

Spicebush Swallowtail Butterfly, Papilio troilus

on Joe Pye Weed Flowers

Notice the body hairs that extend onto the wings of this specimen.

I think this is a female by the irredescent blue coloring.

Male Carpenter Bee on Joe Pye Weed flowers

American Bumble Bee

Out of focus hummingbird

Small Solomon's Seal, Polygonatum biflorum

with blue berries.

Monarda bradburiana, also called Eastern Bee Balm

One to two feet tall with soft pink flowers in late spring.

Leaves are beautiful, and mine cascade over the edge of tall pots.

Butterfly Weed with Green Sweat Bee

Wild Petunia, Ruellia humilis

Flowers open at night, and fall off the next afternoon.

Ripe Spicebush berries.

A berry is still green on this bush.

Probably feather of a Common Grackle

in potted Aromatic Asters that will be planted in fall.

Spicebush Swallowtail Butterfly, Papilio troilus

on flowers of Wild Bergamot, Monarda fistulosa 

'Winterthur' Viburnum 

This little branch is changing to fall colors,

probably due to lack of rain and intense heat.

 Tall plants are Horseweed, Conyza canadensis

in side garden where there is exposed topsoil.

Summer annual that moved in on its own.

Quite a few tiny bees are on it.

I think the bee is a Leafcutter Bee.

Tip of tiny flower looks like a daisy,

and the seedhead looks like a tiny dandelion seedhead.

I keep it for the insects.

Eastern Leaf-footed Bug
Leptoglossus phyllopus

Bug is piercing the berry of an American Beautyberry, Callicarpa americana

to suck contents out. 

 

This Post Is Linked To:

Saturday's Critters

My Corner of the World