Tag Archives: cicadas

Sitting With Sadness, by Jennifer Angelina Petro

Posted on by

Sitting with Sadness

By

Jennifer Angelina Petro

 

 

Time slows like it does on long summer afternoons,

You smell the scent of rain even though there is a cloudless sky,

You get up to go about your day and sadness follows you like a moveable river,

You resist impulses to drown out her sobbing with food, sex, spending—

You feel her rocking back and forth in your heart causing you to do the same in your chair,

Trees whisper windy syllables through the curtains and gently tousles your hair,

Bees hover around your house making sure you understand sadness brings gifts of honey,

Cicada song drones through the sky in waves and settles into the hollow places deep in your bones,

A terrible longing–timeless and holy, lives in her tears and touches yours,

And when she decides to leave, she assures you she will return,

And if you are able, you will sit with her again as she weeps around the roots of your being.

 

poem image 11


 

 



All donations go to medical expenses, groceries, and daily living.  Thank you for your support. <3

Nursing the Dark, Eating the Light, a Fable, by Radiance Angelina Petro

Posted on by

Nursing the Dark, Eating the Light

A Fable

by

Radiance Angelina Petro

 

 

One day, an acorn and a cicada nymph were talking underground, when a beam of light suddenly appeared shining down on the acorn.

“What is that?” asked the acorn.

“It’s light,” said the cicada.

“Why is it tugging at me?”

“That’s what light does.”

“What if I don’t want to move?”

“Dunno,” said the cicada, “I’ve been under here for 17 years. I like the dark.”

“I haven’t been under here for nearly as long,” said the acorn, “but it sure is comfortable.”

“And cool,” said the cicada, “and snug, and yeah, so cool—wonderfully cool.”

“What do I do?” asked the acorn.

“About what?”

“The pull.  I mean, my heart feels like it’s breaking, and something inside wants out.”

“Go with it,” said the cicada. “So part of you moves into the light? Your roots will always be in darkness.”

“And what about you?”

“Me?” Said the cicada, “Well, when the light draws me out, and I climb a tree and wait for my wings to spill out, then my roots will be in the sky.”

“Should I try to fight the light?” asked the acorn.

“Good luck,” said the cicada. “Funny thing is, once during late summer, you fell to the ground and the darkness pulled you under and you loved it. You didn’t resist. You couldn’t resist. I heard you sinking down. You were weeping and laughing all at the same time because it was so nourishing and safe-feeling to be under here. Now you want to fight the light. Try this, just try breathing in the light, and see what happens.”

The acorn did as the cicada suggested and she suddenly felt the light breathing her and she found herself unfurling into the bright, blue sky, and the light–she was eating the light.

“There ya go,” said the cicada.

“Aren’t you coming?” asked the acorn as she turned away.

“When I have suckled the roots of the mother tree long enough,” said the cicada, “then I will come. For now I am still nursing the dark.”

 

 

 


 

 

 


As of the posting of this story, I am still unemployed and without an income.  Please help if you can.  All my love, Radiance

The Next Neighborhood Over, by Radiance Angelina Petro

Posted on by

The Next Neighborhood Over

By

Radiance Angelina Petro


Trying to follow the sound

Of the cicadas is what it’s like

Trying to follow the sound

Of god.

 

Cicadas throw their voices

And you can think one

Is right up in that tree over there,

When, in fact, it is actually

In a tree in the next neighborhood over.

 

Trying to trace the sound

Of god one finds oneself

Tracing figures in the air,

Or wishes on the shore.

 

 

Listening to the sound

Of god is much easier

Than asking the source

Of that sound questions.

 

When the cicada stops singing

And falls unseen

From its branch high up

In the tree, the silence

Signals us that change is here—

 

We realize waiting for answers

Is foolish and a waste–

Autumn is coming.

 

So we had better be prepared.

 

When we notice

There is no singing in the trees,

When we realize we have forgotten

Entirely about the sound—

We know winter is here.

 

And if we don’t do something

Outlandish and daring

In order to try making the sound

Ourselves,

Our ears will freeze over with regret,

Our hearts will harden from lack of use.

And our dreams—the ones

We used to use as compasses

To follow the sound

Of god, will be carried away, like

The shell of a cicada,

Like the shell of a sound,

Like the shell of a god

That used to play

Hide and seek with us

From the next neighborhood over.



 

 




Thank you for supporting my transition.  Radiance <3

Continue reading →

What the Cicada Sees, by Jennifer Angelina Petro

Posted on by

What the Cicada Sees

by

Jennifer Angelina Petro

 

looking up at tree

 

After combing through
Layers of moist earth and mazes
Of roots, the cicada nymph
Blooms from the ground
And begins climbing
Seeing only sky,
And branches
Waving: “Come on,
You can do it!” And it climbs–
Eyes on the prize, heart pumping,
Wings tingling waiting for space
To unlatch and spread,
Voice still trapped in an ever
Thinning skin, confidence
Growing with every plunge
Of its hooks–higher
Until it suddenly stops
In mid-motion,
Pauses in time and space,
Unable to go even one more step
In its old clothes,
And then,
And then it gives birth unto itself,
Slowly sloughing off
Doubts and fears,
Never once losing track
Of the heaven awaiting
And the heaven of the moment,
And the heaven of simply opening
Itself to the sky,
And letting the song it has been
Composing for years soar
Through the summer trees
Announcing to all things
The truth of transformation,
The truth that we are all
Bound to change,
The truth that even the darkest time
Spent among roots and soil,
Leads to wings, leads
To open spaces, leads to becoming
Who you really are.

 


 

 

All donations go to keeping the Wonder Child Blog afloat and to my Transition.  Thank you.  Love, Jennifer


12 / 13 / 14

Posted on by

12 / 13 / 14
by
Joseph Anthony

12 / 13 / 14

The tissue paper wing of the dead cicada,
The dry, decomposing leaf that reveals the hair-thin frame,
The tailspinning snowflake landing on my coat,
The seedling finally threading through the ruckusy goings on of the thick forest floor,
The hatchling robins shaking, blind, void of feathers, hungry,
The surface of the pond as I just lay my hand, like so, upon its face,
My hand as the cool water enfolds it with the darkness of sensation,
The small Christmas present, all crinkles and tape, loosely and lovingly wrapped by a child,
The quavering moon held in the fingertips of the winter branches,
The trembling hand adding the last, tiniest detail to the drawing,
The onion skin paper between the pages of the prayer book from the 1800’s,
This heart, this mind, this fluttering soul,
How does one allow for such vulnerable tenderness?
How does one be in the presence of such beautiful, holy fragility
Without feeling the impulse to crush?
How, dear Lord of sparrows and lilies,
Does one protect such delicate things?