Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world,
and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.
– Percy Bysshe Shelley
and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.
– Percy Bysshe Shelley
shell of a cicada
it sang itself
utterly away
– Matsuo Bashō
"Amazing Cicada Life Cycle"
Sir David Attenborough's Life in the Undergrowth (BBC)
There's going to be a bumper crop (i.e., billions) of Brood X cicadas emerging in the next few weeks. Read my "Love Song" to the humble cicada HERE.
April 1: John Muir
April 2: e.e. cummings and enra
April 3: Edith Wharton and Henri Matisse
April 4: Cesare Pavese
April 5: Anton Chekhov and Cat Stevens
April 6: Ray Bradbury and... cats
April 8: Albert Einstein and John Bohannon
April 10: Zelda Fitzgerald and Arvo Pärt
April 11: Elinor Wylie
April 12: David Ault and Imogen Heap
April 13: William Shakespeare and Alice Tzue
April 14: Bruce Garrabrandt and OK Go
April 15: Anne Kent Rush and Bill T. Jones
April 17: Jean Houston and Lunch Break Quartet
April 18: John Milton
April 20: Theodore Roethke and Charles Reznikoff
April 21: Octavio Paz and Salvador Dalí
April 22: Vincent van Gogh and Katsushika Hokusai
April 23: Nizar Qabbani and Quixotic
April 24: Auguste Rodin and Jamie Scott
April 25: Rainer Maria Rilke
April 26: Terri Guillemets and Joni Mitchell
April 27: Percy Bysshe Shelley, Bashō, and Sir David Attenborough
I remember this haiku every time I pick a cicada shell off the wall. Bashõ is a true artist.
ReplyDeleteI found the first "June" bug today (they usually show up in May here), so I'm pretty sure Brood X will be coming out soon. We got up into the 80s today, and the ground temperature needs to be 64 degrees. 17 years ago, we were at sleepover camp with our 4th graders and the fishing was AMAZING. Put a cicada on your hook and you were guaranteed a fish. Fun times.
ReplyDeleteWhat great memories, Mary Lee! I've heard that Brood X cicadas are plentiful, but also pretty clumsy when it comes to falling out of trees! Easy pickins even without the fish hook. LOL.
DeleteI wonder if we will be able to hear the birds over the cicadas?
ReplyDeleteYour NPM project has turned out so wonderfully! I hope you are pleased with it :-)
Good question! Make sure to let me know— we're not supposed to get Brood X in Florida. But judging by Sir David's expression when one was singing in his ear, I doubt it!
DeleteI'm happy to be dodging the Brood X phenomenon as well, Michelle. The stuff of nightmares IMHO. ;)
ReplyDelete"shell of a cicada"
ReplyDeleteis one of my all-time favorite haiku. I've read other translations, but this one by R. H. Blyth is outstanding. Thanks for featuring it!