The Sense of Cicada

Athens, Georgia
February 12, 2015

When morning chill
        subsides to day
                soft air will trill
        to waves of cicada
in rhythmic insistence

suffusing the summer
        with resonant tides
                traversing the decades
        to float an old spirit
outside of its time

where evening shadows
       hold an old homestead
               with cabin and garden
        once carved from the forest
by grandfather’s hand.

Out back in the darkness
        young parents and uncles
                with aunties and elders
        are weaving old stories
conversing again

while tucked in the sun-room
        four children are drifting
                in cots become lifeboats
        through open-screen wonder
on currents of love.

Eternity beckons
        as voices are merging
                with swells of cicada
        from forests departed
and family dispersed.

But listen more closely
        within the brief pauses
                a new conversation
        with children now grown
and grandparents gone.

From faraway darkening
        that bleeds through the chasm
                we hear our own voices
        in timorous rhythms
emerging to life.

Perhaps we shall sing
        with the sense of cicada
                that time is illusion
        the earth is our nursery
summer abides.

"Annual Cicada,"
photograph by Bruce Martin

A January Retreat

In memory of Marcus Borg, and appreciation for Epworth By The Sea  

There are sullen winter spells 

that settle heavy on the soul 

like overcooked comfort food 

on two hour naps through half dark days 

stuck in a string of gray thirties, 

when wet descends in cold drifts 

as silent songbirds cling to trees 

and muffled crows cast about, listless. 

But, yes – when the cold cloud lifts 

I shall head south on a state road, 

past brown fields of dog fennel 

when backlit tips wear tan halos 

behind stubble ditches and broomsedge shoulders. 

I shall sail over silhouettes of distant cattle 

plying well trod pasture; beyond tin-roof sheds, 

strewn about with farm machines; 

above old lawns anchored by scotch broom 

and lonely oak; over ordered rows of old pecan 

outside the town where Remus broods; 

through the strip past Andalusia, 

set apart from the way to Walmart. 

I shall crest the fall line 

and roll the frozen swells 

of an ancient seabed 

that stretches out to the blue-green horizon 

of barren plantations in cash-crop pine. 

Will you come too? 

Shall we tune our souls to a mellow song? 

Can we ‘Let it Be’ ‘Sweet Baby James’ 

down ‘The Long and Winding Road’ again? 

So calm we are energized by Enya. 

So centered we bless the car that cuts us off 

and send our love the driver inside. 

For there are kind winter spells,

and we are heading south, 

cutting through noon shadows 

to a land of graybeard and ghosts,

confluence of earth and sky, 

river and sea, where brackish channels 

braid marsh and mudbank, 

porpoise feed the peaceful waters, 

and mist mingles with heaven at dawn.

Epworth By The Sea