June, 2004: the 17-year cicadas Brood X emerge from the ground in Virginia and fourteen other states and the District, as far south as Georgia and as far north as Michigan.
I was sitting on the garden bench under the maple tree early one morning last month, when I saw my first cicada. It was walking slowly but firmly along the ground toward the maple tree. It hit a piece of large bark mulch, turned upside down, briefly bicycled its legs in the air, then righted itself, and continued its march toward the tree. “March” was the word; it seemed to have a definite idea of its goal. It reached the trunk of the tree and marched up the trunk.
Since that morning, more and more cicadas have emerged in our yard. We seem to be in a high density area of the emergence of this brood: high density is defined as over a million cicadas per acre. We have over two and a half acres—perhaps over two million cicadas. In the back yard around the maple tree, every leaf of every shrub is covered with the shells of the cicadas, and shells litter the ground like brown confetti.
For the past month the air has been filled with cicadas flying from tree to tree, sometimes bumbling into us. The air is filled, too, with the high-pitched unearthly music of the male cicadas, pleading to the females. During the heat of the day, the sound of the cicadas rises, and I have to retreat to the house to get any peace.
Now, at the peak of the cycle, the cicadas are busy mating; the females lay their eggs in the outer twigs of the branches, which then break off and fall to the ground. The exhausted bodies of the adult cicadas litter the paths, the patios, and the ground, like tiny revelers after Mardi Gras. The eggs will hatch, and the larvae crawl back into the ground, where they will live for the next 17 years, quietly sucking fluids from the tree roots. At least, that is how I understand their life cycle.
Bill and I are 61 and here to witness this emergence of the cicadas. Our son and our daughter are married, and our daughter has a little girl, age two.
May 31st 2021
Brood X has emerged once more, and Bill is not here to listen to their music. He died of cancer in July of 2010. My granddaughter now is 19, and my son has two children ages 10 and 7. There have been other deaths in my extended family, and other births. The rhythm of our human lives is different from these cicadas; we move to different music, but the beat is the same.
I read in the paper that the cicadas sing up to the very moment of their death, and that the last note of their music sounds like a heart monitor fading. Now, listening to the music of the cicadas, I sing my own melody, moving forward on the great spool of time.