Photo by Colin Brown
Don't we all at times feel constrained by the rigidity of our exoskeleton? Perhaps we feel a simple need to grow, or perhaps an urge to metamorphose into something entirely new. Either way, we must go through a painful, yet necessary ecdysis, the moulting of that old skin in favor of a new, pliant shell that will allow us to fulfill our greater potential.
Then, just as we emerge, we are aware of how teneral our state is, how soft and pale we feel in our new shell. Over time, that shell hardens, protecting us once again, but soon becoming all-too constricting...
But that's okay, because we've only got a few weeks in which to drone on with an incessant buzz, desperately trying to find a mate before we die.
Oh, sally forth young cicada! Stretch those wings, tan that hide, and ruin many an otherwise pleasant evening out on the patio with your ceaseless buzzing.
Sep 7, 2009
Ecdysis
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5 comments:
We usually found them buzzing in our cat's mouth.
Aww, I love the sounds of cicadas in the Midwest. It's a true sign that Summer is here.
When we were young my brother and I would put the discarded shells on our fingertips and they looked like long brown nails. We'd run up to our mom and demand hugs and she'd freak out.
I have too many fond memories (warped visions?) of cicadas to think of them as annoying!
The only thing I think of when I hear Cicadas is our dog. . . . laying on the floor. . . farting. He likes to eat them. They don't agree with him.
Oh buzz on, you little evanescent beings, for sooner or later time, lack of a mate, or the Cicada Assasin wasp will cut you down. If it is the latter, then I hope it takes you down somewhere far far away from where I am riding my bike, thus avoiding another insect-related crash.
How would we know that it is fall in Houston, TX, if it weren't for the ceaseless hum of the cicada's. It is not as if anything else changes.
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