All the trees grow legs and sing.
When I hear a song that brings me back
to a year of illness, I do not want to think
of illness, I want to think of singing. I want
to think of words for grief, if not
the names of people I have never met.
I've called hurricanes by names
I didn't choose for them, and who chooses?
Who names the trees? The Senator,
Tree of Memory, Tree of Sacrifice.
If we must name an illness for cicadas,
I want to give each cicada a name.
I want to call them Jazz, and Blues,
and Ragtime. When they sing their song
in the wet heat of summer, awake
after sleeping for a hundred years,
I do not want to hear of more illness.
I do not want a hundred years of sadness
when once again the trees grow silent and still.
Naming The Cicadas by River Adams | Poetry Reed Diffuser Set
$20.00Price
