Maracas in the sky, I call them. They play their music with the whispering leaves of the trees or, maybe more so, in the still, heavy heat of a breezeless day. Always, there is sun and warmth to accompany their continual concert of hypnotic buzzing and maraca-like harmonics. It is the steady and bewitching song of the cicada that has the power to transport me back to my childhood summers in Michigan.
Their sound alone conjures images of reading Nancy Drew Mysteries, The Chronicles of Narnina, or Island of the Blue Dolphins for the third time as I laze in a hammock beneath a canopy of trees while camping with my grandparents in Michigan's great Up North; or lying in the cool, fragrant grass with two or ten other kids to watch the clouds go by after a lively game of freeze-tag; or walking home in subdued contentment with my best friend from the community pool--our hair dripping down our backs, our wet swimsuits rolled inside of our damp towels, and the audible flip-flopping of our shoes joining the buzzing and shaking of those cicadas.
They are always there in the trees, making themselves heard, but it is in the hushed moments that our minds acknowledge the lulling call of the cicada. Like a sedative, their rhythmic percussions and buzzes commence softly, swiftly growing emphatic and intense with their sure stream of sound, then quieter again, with an abrupt end...only to start their good vibrations afresh minutes later.
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