"cicada songs..."

i am called to the
door by the
waves of sound,
a droning,  ebbing,
flowing,
whirr of tones that
pierce, and
yet, today seem
soothing to the soul...

She drops from the
deep eaves of the
maybeck building where I
have an office hours that day, and
I wonder if she has
called me to her classroom

I open the door and find
her sitting on the
pavement just beyond the
threshold and
let the door swing closed behind me
while I sit with my back against
the brick wall and look into
her eyes

she walks towards me, and then
turns to "pull in next to me" so that
we are gazing out in the same
direction towards the
campus lawn filled with
tress and students and
the air still humming with
her brother's call...

"what is your question" she
asks. 

i do not have to think for long and
silently query,
"thirteen years underground for three
weeks of life...does that make you
sad that it is so short.."

"oh my child," she responds soberly,
"you have such a limited sense of life"

I lived fully underground, I have known great
quiet and deep peace, I am new to this form,
but look at what I am seeing today...yes,
look out there with me...isn't it
beautiful?  Isn't this song of love
amazing"

and I look at the most beautiful sight
thorugh her eyes, thousands of her friends flying
through the warm summer air, singing
out their hunger for love, to be in
relationship, dancing together,
drinking sweet nectar from
the trees...

"three weeks of this is more than
I could have ever dreamed," she sighs,
"it is more than worth it..."

and then I see the shell,
the carcass of what was once her
body, lying nearby, and ask,
"does that make you sad, afraid, or
uncomfortable, to see your former
body lying there..."

"no," she says....

and I knew we were sisters
in the same
classroom....

"thank you..." I said,
and she flew away to
join in the dance

and the life lesson
continues...