14. Cicadas

New year, new thoughts, Terrible Writing.

2024 is Cicada Summer, right?

Or is it Brat Summer? Or is it Olympic Summer?

Imagine this little guy in the hundred meter dash!

I like big broods and I cannot lie

There were two big broods that emerged this year. Of course, there are plenty of annual cicadas that come up every year (with one- to nine-year cycles), and I’m hearing them as I type. But some special cicadas are huge recluses and stay underground for years and years, then emerge in early summer. These species are unique to North America.

This summer we got a double dose: a “seventeen year brood” and a “thirteen year brood” (that’s how many years they wait underground). We don’t always get one of these special emergences, and we rarely get two at once. The event was significant enough to get a segment on SNL Weekend Update.

Oh no! He’s going to talk about math, isn’t he?

There is speculation that the 13/17-year cycles evolved to avoid a predator that lived on a different cycle (e.g. 5 years). Since 13 and 17 are prime numbers, their cycles are far less likely to coincide with other cycles. This year’s dual emergence only happens every other century.

Consider the hypothetical predator on a 5-year cycle. The 17-year cicada would only coincide with them every 85 years.

Who would you avoid for 85 years by living underground?

There’s more, of course

There’s always more information and more complexity. I’ll leave it up to you to read a wikipedia page and sate your own curiosity.

I went walking one day

One day I was walking to the train, hearing the cicadas overpower my noise-cancelling headphones, and I thought, “they are here, now. This is the time to notice them.” So I switched off the headphones and chose to be present in the moment.

And while I listened to their song, I thought about their life and their cycle, and I wondered what it might be like to live that experience. And before I made it to the train platform, I had a poem.

Cicada Poem

In high school
my crush on Alan
turned me into a cicada

I wanted to climb a tree and
scream real loud
I wanted to peel off my skin and
show different colors
I wanted to mate until I died
of exhaustion

But instead
I locked my buzzing heart inside my ribs
because it wasn’t
yet
my year
to emerge

Finally, a list

In issue 01, I talked about making lists like those in The Pillow Book of Seishonagon and I will continue the practice. Here’s one of her prompts.

• Poetic subjects:

  • cicadas

  • one’s cat. Truly, endless poems could be written about cats

  • fish

  • leaving

  • a certain pain that one feels when thinking about a lost friend

  • trees

  • mountains

  • bawdy things. An inexhaustible source of fascination for humans throughout time

  • the feeling of falling asleep

  • all the different aspects (and starts and stops) of love

  Please leave a comment with additional poetic subjects!

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