Créer un thème personnalisé
0
I've been appreciating the hot summer days, recently. I must say one of the great bonuses of being a teacher is that you are certain to have the summer off, thus giving you time to bask in the heat of long sunny days. Here is a poem written during the autumn and winter of 2006, after the days had waned, and the cecadas, so overpoweringly present during the summer months, had died out, leaving behind them such stunning silence that it seemed as if all at once Nature itself had dissappeared, engulfed in the autumnal chill.
Cecada Song
Sky whitens,
Night lightens.
Slowly the cecadas intone
Softly at first their grating drone.
One by one
Greeting the sun;
As it moves higher rising in sound
Till their song comes from all around.
Enveloping,
Deafening,
Different pitches low and high
Tell their loud story to the sky.
In rosemary,
In each fig tree,
On the coarsened bark of pines,
In thyme, sycamores and vines,
Under shrub,
Long wings rub,
Vibrant through the sweltering hours,
The air too still to move the flowers.
Afternoon heat
Fragrant and sweet,
The sun's rays on the skin scorch
Each one like a reddened torch.
On goes the song
Rythmic and strong,
Heartbeat of the Southern summer,
The Mediterranean call of Nature.
Transient day,
Waning away,
The chirping fades as does the light
Slowly easing down toward night.
A last one still,
Over the hill;
And little by little as thick night falls,
As candles snuffed out, so die the calls.
I remember once hearing cecadas on the farm of great-uncle Hank, on one of those hot summer days. That day I met a cousin I hadn't ever met before, Michael. The day was hot and sweet; the old mechanical piano, just like those in old western movies, competed loudly with the insects for attention as it clanged out a tune from the inside of the parlour. Homemade lemonade, heat, laughter, earnest conversation under the shade of the slowly swaying trees, and the sound of cecadas... the perfect summer afternoon. Michael and I wrote to each other for several years and then, just like the cecadas dying out at the end of the season, stopped as life engulfed us in its whirlwind of activity and bustle. Some memories stay with you forever, although the relationships may not. Here's to you Michael.
Sky whitens,
Night lightens.
Slowly the cecadas intone
Softly at first their grating drone.
One by one
Greeting the sun;
As it moves higher rising in sound
Till their song comes from all around.
Enveloping,
Deafening,
Different pitches low and high
Tell their loud story to the sky.
In rosemary,
In each fig tree,
On the coarsened bark of pines,
In thyme, sycamores and vines,
Under shrub,
Long wings rub,
Vibrant through the sweltering hours,
The air too still to move the flowers.
Afternoon heat
Fragrant and sweet,
The sun's rays on the skin scorch
Each one like a reddened torch.
On goes the song
Rythmic and strong,
Heartbeat of the Southern summer,
The Mediterranean call of Nature.
Transient day,
Waning away,
The chirping fades as does the light
Slowly easing down toward night.
A last one still,
Over the hill;
And little by little as thick night falls,
As candles snuffed out, so die the calls.
I remember once hearing cecadas on the farm of great-uncle Hank, on one of those hot summer days. That day I met a cousin I hadn't ever met before, Michael. The day was hot and sweet; the old mechanical piano, just like those in old western movies, competed loudly with the insects for attention as it clanged out a tune from the inside of the parlour. Homemade lemonade, heat, laughter, earnest conversation under the shade of the slowly swaying trees, and the sound of cecadas... the perfect summer afternoon. Michael and I wrote to each other for several years and then, just like the cecadas dying out at the end of the season, stopped as life engulfed us in its whirlwind of activity and bustle. Some memories stay with you forever, although the relationships may not. Here's to you Michael.
