Robin Winckel-Mellish
Cicadas
The cicadas in the trees above
have been making that sharp singing
sound all day, starting and stopping
taking a rest, and then an explosion
of noise, as if trying to drown our voices
in the kitchen, and it has just occurred
to me standing at the window, washing
the breakfast cups, that their lives
depend on their singing, unseen
but constant and that this is the heart’s
greatest project:
learning how to hold on,
to keep on trying to make something
of the bright new surface of each day,
and at the same time recognise
and cherish the great scar of demise.
To live with desire for both, to know
their names, and as the cicadas, sing
out an endless call in the heat of summer,
and when the damp cold winds blow,
return underground, to sip
sap from the roots of trees.
Featured at The Red Wheelbarrow on 23 June 2022
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