Maracas in the Sky (Summer Sounds Revised)

I also did a version of this one in July of 2011, but I think I like how this one turned out better. From October 2011, the last installment of the-story-of-my-life-in-one-hundred-words-or-less-assignment:



Maracas in the sky, I call them. They play their music with the whispering of the trees or in the heavy heat of a breeze-less day. Always, there is sun and warmth to accompany their continual concert of hypnotic buzzing and maraca-like harmonics. It is the steady, bewitching song of the cicada that has the power to soothe my soul and transport me back to my childhood summers in Michigan--camping with my grandparents, lazing in the hammock while reading Nancy Drew Mysteries; collapsing onto the cool, fragrant grass with ten other kids after a lively game of freeze-tag; walking home from Warren Pool in quiet contentment with my best friend, the flip-flopping of our shoes in rhythm to those maracas in the sky. It is in these hushed moments that our minds acknowledge the lulling call of the cicada and the renewing sway of their good vibrations.

A Soothing Summer Sound

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.