Falling for Autumn

"Sole Cicada"

(One of my newer shadow boxes, called "Sweeping of Dreams")

Sunlight
straddled
morning
and
evening,
flickering
both ways.

The trees clicked,
whispered,
and I thought if I
could just listen
hard enough
I might
discern
some archetypal
tongue.

I found it at my feet,
the poor cicada,
between death and life

trembling,
the rippling
camouflage
beneath
the ambered
shell
ready to
emerge.

Those claws like pincers
tiring, desperate
grappling hooks pulling
up, up, over, down
up - anywhere,
because all the climbing is
about is
escaping
oneself.

Must hold on
to let go.

There must have been
a RIPping noise
but I only saw
a giant
hanging
from a
sandy shell,
black mirror eyes
no longer writhing

and then, there! growing, stretching
shuffling wet green wings
sailing in the wind.

The shell remains,
clinging,
until

They are fallen

leaves.

In the new-found silence,
autumn has come.


(This poem may be a repost, I'm not sure. If it is, it's been a while! I found this old poem recently. As I read it through, connecting with its transformative crunch, I remember disliking it for a very long time. It didn't flow right, it didn't sit right... You know how it goes. Funny how different poems resonate at different times. This one has me almost-smiling now. My next post will also be transformation themed - but much more visual. Enjoy!)