Cicadas

Out on my back porch. Beautiful day. Very fragrant too. Is this because the hibiscuses are dying? The squirrels eat them. Who knew? I once was out here and I looked up and there was a squirrel peering at me through the foliage with a pile of guilty evidence around his paws.

Add to the fragrant air a chorus of cicadas. I associate them more with twilight and dusk. Is this because dusky evening scenes in the movies often have the hum of cicadas in the background? Then the central character stares off into the distance to a vanishing horizon with a blank expression that we know is full of pathos and possibly a tinge of regret. We know this because of the humming cicadas. How perfectly it all comes together! I am home alone (isolation), the air is fragrant (nostalgia) with dying hibiscus (death), and the cicadas are singing (moment of mature reflection). I suppose if it weren't midday it might add up to all those things for me. But it is midday. The sun is shining. And there is ice cream in my immediate future. I am re-christening the fragrant air and humming cicadas as hallmarks of a wonderful deep summer day.