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Periodicity
Springfield, Illinois, May-June 2024
All our town has caught cicada fever.
Seven broods emerge, the selfsame time.
This fluke converts me to an awed believer
in nature’s odd propensity to rhyme.
So curious, insect cycles intersect
like a comet’s rare traverse across our sun.
Last seen 1803, this synced effect,
come 2245, concurs again.
God blesses all His creatures, the psalmist sings.
It’s plain to see, His loving circadian care,
but hard to comprehend hermetic things:
deep sequenced patterns, intricate equations.
And so my constant heartfelt whispered prayer,
to study, praise His cryptic ideations.
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Mary Jane Myers resides in Springfield, Illinois. She is a retired JD/CPA tax specialist. Her debut short story collection Curious Affairs was published by Paul Dry Books in 2018.
I can imagine the amazing emergence of various cicada broods occurring simultaneously for the first time in two centuries and not emerging together for two more. The shock and awe is moderated in your poem by your wonderment and thoughtful consideration of God’s creatures.
Dear Roy
Thank you for your perceptive comment. While I love and admire cicada-kind (because I am fascinated by cyclical phenomena) I can’t stand individual cicadas, especially in large numbers. I’ll have to work on developing appreciation for each individual cicada!
Most sincerely
Mary Jane
This is a beautiful sonnet on a mysterious natural phenomenon; it really needed to be written! Several phrases struck me as particularly profound: “in nature’s odd propensity to rhyme”; “His loving circadian care”; “deep sequenced patterns, intricate equations”; “cryptic ideations”.
Cynthia
Thank you for your kind comments. We are so lucky that we have experts explaining the complexity of natural phenomena to us. Otherwise, I would simply grimace in disgust when these insects descend on us!
Sincerely Mary Jane
As an insect enthusiast I am always fascinated with these creatures. I once wrote a story about a cicada nymph who wondered why he was suddenly digging upward. Thank you for this very beautiful tribute to one of God’s spectacular groups of living things. I was also struck precisely by the phrases Cynthia has noted.
Dear Jeff
Your story sounds delightful. It must be strange to be a cicada–asleep like Rip Van Winkle for many years–then emerging into a world significantly altered by technology. 17 years ago, when the 17-year cycle nymphs started their long sleep, the first I-phone had just been introduced and the CERN Large Hadron Collider was powered up for the first time. Of course, the cicadas are so busy singing and mating that they probably don’t notice any changes!
Sincerely
Mary Jane
By allowing the cicada (or many of them) to suggest the term “circadian,” Mary Jane, you open up a wealth of scientific and mathematical vocabulary for use in this contemplative poem. “Thou hast ordered all things by measure and number and weight” (Wisdom 11:21). Without sacrificing accentual meter, you do allow an extra syllable in several of the lines, and I think that would be most appropriate in the final line with “to study and praise.” As it stands, the mere comma instead of “and” makes the line read awkwardly, as if introducing “study-praise” to be a combination coinage with new meaning. Enjoyed it even more by supplying the “and” in my reading!
Margaret
Thank you for your careful reading and your excellent editorial suggestion. I had a great deal of difficulty with the final line–scribbled with my Blackwing, erased, scribbled again –my chaotic mind not tuned into the divine order of “measure and number and weight”!
Most sincerely
Mary Jane
A few days ago, I read “To a Cicada” by Martin Rizley, and now it’s your wonderful sonnet. I find myself unable to stop contemplating this magnificent creature. Nature indeed has “an odd propensity to rhyme.” I like the comet analogy to describe the periodicity of the occurrence of this creature. I love how the sonnet turns into your own contemplation of this phenomenon and, ultimately, the ways of God. Thank you, Mary Jane.
Dear Shamik
Thank you for your comments. Martin’s poem focuses on his delight in each individual cicada, his “songful friend.” I must admit, individual cicadas give me the creeps! one of my character flaws, I’m sure. But people like me appreciate nature in a different way–we love the patterns that give us an intuition of the divine.
Most sincerely
Mary Jane
When I was growing up in Pennsylvania, I was stupidly taught to call cicadas locusts, and we called the molted husks they left on trees locust shells. I can remember a year when there were so many of them that when I went to visist my Aunt Ella in Princeton, NJ, every step I took on her driveway crushed half a dozen of the damn things underfoot. Being realistic about it, they are nothing more than another God-sent plague. The stridulent buzzing they put in my ears is still with me.
Dear C.B.
LOL! I agree with you. There’s something Biblically “ominous” about this phenomenon of millions of insects hatching and emerging as if from the underworld, and taking wing en masse. That stridulent buzzing seems to me like tinnitus on steroids. My expression must resemble the consternation of that woman in Munch’s The Scream–completely unhinged by something sinister. But others absolutely love these little Devonian creatures. And they are kinda cute, one at a time, perched on a fascinated seven-year-old child’s palm!
Sincerely
Mary Jane