I wonder why and how cicadas sing in unison as they do
their loud hum rising and falling as it does almost
as one, as if led by a tuxedo-wearing conductor
a flash mob of them hidden in their various perches
in tree and shrub joining their voices in chorus.
I wonder too whether I will notice their
closing performance before autumn falls
whether there is an actual last day and if so when
it might be and finally whether or not I will
ever stop my wondering and if so why.
The thing is this: a person sitting at a table
eating a peach maybe a small bowl of rice
various thoughts and ideas traveling through her brain
suddenly realizes that every other person
too has a brain occupied in more or less
the same way the difference being that
whatever riffles through one remains
shuttered up unbudging in another or
yet becomes tangled in a sort of chaos
in still an Other and so on differing
to the point of mystery
so that each to the other is only
a map of a territory at best
which gives no indication of
what the houses there are like
who lives in them
what they’ve planted in their yards
how narrow or wide their streets are
and whether or not their loved children
are safe to play and wander as they’d like.
My sister’s best friend in high school was born
on this day I always remember Groundhog’s Day
a plain girl with thinning hair even then
exceptional wit, a jester’s sharp humor, she hung
Christmas ornaments from her glasses, worked on
the school newspaper a bit of a rebel and I think of her
each Groundhog’s Day though I’ve known nothing of her
for forty years, a girl with glasses and thinning hair
and where is she now what has she done has
someone loved her and would she ever imagine
me fondly recalling an image of her as I do
and is every person everywhere recalled fondly
somewhere by someone and is that possibly what
carries our spirits forward?