from the Nytimes Comments

[srican69]

This comment was made on an article about Cicadas .. It's a poem that was composed by the commenter. I enjoyed it very much - I hope you do too.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/14/science/marvels-and-a-few-mysteries-in-cicadas-17-years.html?hp&_r=0

Death Of A Cicada

The great cicada's life was spent
He now lay stiff on the cement
Seventeen years in hibernation
For two wild weeks of liberation

As if those endless years of rest
Were so he could be at his best
When the moment came along
To fill the summer with a song

Resembling a pagan screeching
All day long I was beseeching
This bug shut its infernal yap
And go back to eternal nap

But first he had a job to do
Was hardwired to see it through
He spent his days in copulation
To increase cicada population

And perpetuate some future brood
This guy was always in the mood
To fly and eat and scream and play
That's all cicadas do all day

They don't write verse or read books
Don't have careers as cops or crooks
Their purpose here is clearly stated
Leave the stage after you've mated

So thus our subject's had his day
Like someone acting in a play
He gloried in the task he had
Lived and loved, which ain't half bad

Now he lies there on his back
The ants are making him a snack
Fearsome beast he once resembled
Quietly being disassembled

In seventeen years they will return
When summer sun begins to burn
I'm not quite sure just what it means
Or what dreams a cicada dreams

One last thought to take along
Life is short, and then it's gone
Make hay with the time fate grants
Soon we'll all be food for ants

[panader0]

1. I enjoyed it too.

[MotherPetrie]

2. K&R

[nchitnis]

3. I also enjoyed reading it.

The last four lines hit home.

[hrmjustin]

4. Welcome to DU my friend!

[dballance]

5. Wow, That's Really a Great Poem

I love how the author, IMHO, just boils life down to the rawest of life.

A being (in this case an insect) exists as part of a larger scope of things. It's not an outsider, an outlier. It's not immune to life's cycles. At any moment it can be crushed by a fly-swatter or stung and killed by a predator. It's part of the cycle. Beings live, they die. They are taken back into the cycle of life by the beings we call pests, parasites, maggots. But like a vulture, they just do what they're "God-given" purpose is to do. That is, if you believe in a god. Otherwise you're smart enough to know the old phrase "What comes around goes around." Isn't that so true?

We think we're all smart and that because we fly beyond the atmosphere to our moon or that we, foolishly, believe we have conquered the atom through nuclear power and atom bombs we believe, though we know better, that we control our environment and our lives.

How totally foolish are we. On the time-scale of the universe, the even smaller time-scale of Earth, we are but a pest. A virulent pest that will devour all the resources of our host and then die out for lack of those resources. Another species will likely emerge. One hopes they'll be less virulent than "mankind." "Man" yes, "kind" never.