The 17 Year Brood

June 4 2013

An eternity

in a bug’s life.

Even our beloved pets

will not live to see the next

brood of cicadas

emerge

on the first warm day

of spring

all at once.

17 years

in sunless underground

attached

to succulent roots,

moving only

a little deeper

in cool snug soil.

Where survival depends

on somehow keeping count,

day by day

for 17 years

in eternal darkness

in isothermic earth.

And then, in synchronized rebirth

emerge

into unaccustomed sun.

Where they fill the sky,

somehow privy

to the mysteries of flight

after all those years

rooted, and blind.

In a world thick with cicadas,

the piercing din

of their calls.

Such small delicate creatures

are not supposed

to live so long,

let alone be noticed. 

Because insects are fleeting

and insignificant,

and we, oblivious

as we go about living

our complicated lives.

As if

except for the bugs that bite, industrious bees

we are exempt

from nature.

So when the cicadas take over

  —  so long, we forgot the time before  — 

we are reminded

how fleeting life is.

And that after the planet is free of us

this is how it will look,

the earth, over-run

the sky, dark with bugs,

shrill

with their raucous songs

and frenzied mating.

Or bugs

inhumanly patient

coolly waiting underground,

methodically keeping count.

We’re too far northwest to witness the emergence of this year’s brood. I’ve only read all the headlines. And I certainly don’t remember the last:  even in our relatively long lives, 17 years is too much. So this is a remarkable story:  that these inconsequential little things could be so long-lived; that insects are actually getting noticed enough for the front page.

The metaphorical possibilities are obvious, but irresistible:  re-birth; the inscrutable intelligence of nature; the frantic imperative of survival and reproduction; the incongruity of something so delicate and ephemeral, yet so long-lived, and the metamorphosis of little grub-like things from underground into the purification of light and air and the freedom of flight.

What I find most instructive, though, is how rare it is for nature to seize our attention, to distract us even momentarily from our own solipsistic self-regard. All that can be hoped is that there is some wonder to accompany the irritation and inconvenience of being temporarily over-run.

We’ve all been told that whatever damage we manage to inflict on the planet and on ourselves, the cockroaches will survive. Most other insects as well, I presume. They may be relatively invisible to us; but insects remain the most numerous animals on earth, who were here long before us, and will most likely be after we’re gone.

(My apologies to all entomologists. I realize that they pull their hair out in frustration every time someone uses “bug” instead of “insect”:  that bugs are one small type of insect, but that most insects are certainly not bugs. In my defence, I’m taking poetic licence here, since the sound and brevity and connotation of “bug” makes it much more useful to me than the more technical sounding “insect”.)