Nature Sings

Written by taylor shea carroll

During the summers, when I was still a little girl,

I would hunt for cicada shells on the oak trees in our yard.

Their voices would ring out to me on those hot nights,

Cause in the South, nights aren’t ever quiet,

Not really.

I could never seem to fall asleep back then,

And I would lay awake thinking about how they were shedding their skin,

Preparing for a journey,

That they couldn’t take their old self on.

Cicadas aren’t pretty.

They’re only good for biblical swarming,

And returning to the Earth,

But I couldn’t seem to help that I loved them.

I miss the sounds of cicadas,

and morning doves,

Now replaced by the hum of a centrifuge and stir bars.

The natural world doesn’t cease being natural when you put it in a tube,

But it looks a little different.