Cicadas

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

The curanderos have shed

their last underworldly skin

and taken to the trees.

Chakapa wings drone icaros,

incanting me into my

animal nature

and beyond all hope

of aloneness.

Since my very first summer,

this has been

what a million essential insects

have asked of me.

Today I heard them.

***

When I was a young girl

I’d pluck cicada exoskeletons

off tree trunks and fence posts.

Bronze and sun-crisped,

I’d delight in the concept that

form can be outgrown.

I adorned my ear lobes with them,

and my fingers –

Like priceless jewels,

the riches of the wooed and betrothed.

Little then did I know

that it was this child’s play

that would teach me

how to fall in love.

***

I said, “Yes!”

and became a bride

to the world.

! Jamie K. Reaser, Author

Published in "Sacred Reciprocity: Courting the Beloved in Everyday Life" (www.hiraethpress.com)