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Cicadas

I’ll miss the cicadas when they go.  They’ve kept us company all summer.

To me, they stand for all the good things of warm weather: to have the doors flung open every morning, to hear the wind through the aspens, and to listen to strains we don’t hear during the winter months.  Plus, cicadas are very interesting, don’t you think?  Have you ever seen one up close?  How about an empty carapace (shell), with its minuscule details still intact?

Liliana and I are sitting out on the front steps the other day.  She says, “Listen!” and puts her finger to her ear.

“I know,” I say.  “Cicadas.”

“Cicadas?”

“Do you remember The Quiet Cricket and how he couldn’t make a sound with his legs?”

She nods.

“The cicadas make a sound with their abdomens.”  I point to my torso region.

“Oh,” she says…and thinks.  “I want to see it.”

“Where do you think that noise is coming from?” I say.

She points to the tops of the trees.

I put on my regretful face.  “Much too high.”

“Yeah,” she says, sadly.

But then we find them on our walks, which is even better.  The way she bends down, her face just centimeters from them, warms my heart.  What is she thinking?  What goes on in that brain of hers?

Is she absorbing all these amazing things?

If you want to hear cicadas for yourself, I’ve embedded a short, 51-second video off YouTube.  Now you, too, can enjoy…even after the icy rains and snows descend upon us.

[Post image: Cicada by beatlemac at stock.xchng]

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