THEY SING
The cicadas get one day to sing, mate
having lived seventeen-years underground
as grubs, that’s a long time for heaven’s sake,
too little for light or to fool around.
Who cares if others hate them when they sing
because their song is not lovely to hear
as if they’d be pleased just to have a fling
with one shot at sex while death waits so near.
Guess their song, to some, is like rakes on rocks
given the time they get to gasp and breed.
In twenty-twenty-four there’re two flocks
competing; they do not need time to feed.
It’s a wonder they’d care to sing at all,
at the rate they rise then suddenly fall.
—from Rattle #86, Winter 2024
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Willie James King: “Mary Oliver’s American Primitive became my first writing teacher. Reading her poems taught me that it was okay to write about the things that really moved, that I cared about. Once I was bitten by the bug, although it started decades ago, I haven’t tired of it since.”
