17-year cicadas, nature’s longest-lived insects, rise once from underground to mate and die.
we gather as one drove then die
cycle-stamped brood from dark larvae
earthen seeded pupae upswarm
mass in choral trees songs burn air
copulate ovules silence again
we gather in fervid paradise
born from the eternal earth womb
where life was a buried name of death
shrill yammering lust detonates
skin piles scattered as sated leaves
we gather within the rising
juddering tymbal brood racket
rise in forests and field edges
echo in stone and glass canyons
live our full day on tar rivers
our army of eyes gather as one
we watched you build hollow towers
sat by your crowded deadly thoughts
mourned your years of plodding and pain
the brief mad flash in which you dwelt
we gather to remember time
before your bone dust darkened the land
your cruel unsteady ascendence
as you lowered yourselves we fought
to arise apart from the same ground
we gather together to praise
the small greatness of your tiny clutch
your earthen dead playing cleft tines
of broken genius as the song
of our bliss fell unheard to you
we gather above your fallen truths
your doubts
dissolved to dirt and fed us
we gather to begin again
again we sing all that we know:
the time for all doing is now
we gather as one drove then die.
