Cicada Time in Richmond

We heard them before we saw them, the

whirring of their mating song sounding

like a rotating lawn sprinkler, only much

louder, wondered at first the source

of the incessant drone, magnified

by the sheer numbers in the chorus

until it was really all you could hear. 

They had emerged from their resting

place underground under the cover

of darkness, seeking a mate, and then

a nesting place, thousands upon

thousands of cicadas, their twelve

year cycle almost complete, they

clung tenaciously to the trees, the

shrubs, even to the window screens,

the sheen of their translucent wings

glistening in the morning sun.