'If earth was heaven and now was hence'

The Latin for Cicada

By C.I.M. Jones

If only I spoke a dead language,

poetry for instance:

The wind - leaf against leaf,

a sound you'd hear bobbing in a pool

of furious pencils. Something like the song

of the cicadas, who, were it not for the singing,

would write such meticulous records: how to find 

a lifelong mate, keep a perfect exoskeleton,

prepare a succulent meal for digestion.

Once in a while, some well-meaning cicada

might say: Don't you see? All this singing we do

means nothing. But lying in the dried summer grass 

they chirr, Our song is the thing.

Sometimes in a field of a splinter of wood

takes flame (flammula in Latin) -

poetic only when the music stops.

Running headlong into another season - the longest for our region, summer. The heat & humidity takes acclimation & caution; demands you slow down, take your pace a little slower, your long runs a little shorter.

Trails are a favorite of mine - the asphalt is unforgiving in the heat, and when I head for the woods where a green canopy overhead blocks the sun's intensity, I escape into a lush dense world busy with the lives of many living things. There's the racket in my ears of frogs & cicadas, and bluejays & catbirds. There's the dense sweetness of honeysuckle on the vine - a memory that hits me every summer with nostalgia that's sad & happy. There's the wisteria's choking floral scent, the growth of weeds, and ivy - 'leaves of three leave it be' - trails once empty & bare in winter, now closed & intimate. Behind every branch decked in flecks of green, there's a home for something that moves or crawls. I swallow gnats, swat away blowflies, dodge spider webs, and don't dare step into the brush - the forest has come alive.

According to the herpetologist, it's breeding season for copperheads.

Today, I met a copperhead in no hurry at all; his diamond shaped head, and distinctive pattern warned me, reminded me to stay off the trails too dense to see where my feet are landing.

Be safe, tread softly, and relish the cicadas ancient song.