Cicadas

Who but you would bring me seven cicadas
harvested in the dark from the damp fence post?
Or even any?

You set them on the jade plant carefully,
as though they were spun platinum;
excitedly you urged me to come see.

Each chose a spot at the top of a branch
and clinging to it, began
the final metamorphosis,
changing from silent crawling thing
to singing emerald flyer,
free to sing to us all summer as
we say to one another knowingly,
and feel somehow proud and responsible,
"the cicadas."

I wanted to spend the night close beside you
watching them emerge
from a paper thin shell after seven years in the dark,

but that part was left out of our equation.

I wanted to watch
as they eased from their prison and slowly unfolded,
drying their wet and crumpled wings,
a miracle of creation recognized as they opened,
veins filled, the gossamer stuff of them nourished.

All seven waited for the sun on their first day.