‘Why land on me?’: Cicada summer pipes down but readers remember in poems, videos, photos
Wild thing. You made my yard sing. You made everything groovy.
Except, of course, when you flew into my face and died spectacularly on the front porch.
Some suburbanites were freaked out by a dual cicada emergence this summer, but not Christy Stroud’s children. Her three kids, ages 4, 7 and 10, “loved the cicada emergence!” the Buffalo Grove resident wrote.
“From the moment (the insects) started coming out of our lawn and crawling all over our fence and plants, they were collecting the cicadas in containers and looking for them daily,” she said.
Stroud and other Daily Herald readers shared their memories of the historic and voluminous convergence of the 17-year cicadas (Brood XIII) and 13-year cicadas (Brood XIX).
“My 10-year-old, who had been having trouble getting up for school, jumped out of bed so fast when I first told him the cicadas were emerging,” Stroud noted.
Her son, Jaylen, even located a rare blue-eyed cicada in their backyard.
“Though cicadas we were not necessarily my favorite insect, I have come to appreciate them more and am amazed at their unique and interesting life cycle. I even overcame my own fears of touching them since my daughter wanted to hold one too, like her brothers,” Stroud said.
Photographer George LeClaire contributed a close-up taken one-quarter inch away from a cicada in his Glenview backyard.
He also chauffeured a cicada. “I had one in my car for three days and could not find it,” LeClaire said.
“Of course, each time I got in my car I could hear it. It was crazy loud! I just couldn’t find it (but) after three days. I finally found it and let it loose.”
Bryant Rosenwinkel of Riverside created a music video for his wife and two young sons.
Living in an older suburb, “there’s lots of established trees so we were hit pretty hard with the cicadas. They seem to be dying down now, but a few weeks ago the sound was piercing right around midday,” Rosenwinkel said.
“To keep us positive about the cicada explosion, I wrote a song called ‘The Cicada Love Song.’ My son has a stuffed cicada that we got from the Field Museum, and I even used it to create a music video for the song,” he said.
Laura Bradley of Homer Glen “searched 19 days high and low, hopping carefully through my yard (so not to step on any cicadas) to find the one-in-a-million blue-eyed cicada.”
She had no luck until June 7, her 20th day of searching.
“I opened the front door and to my surprise this little blue-eyed cicada sat alone looking at me on the brick wall by my front door! I snapped a few pictures and off he went. If you wish it (and a little luck) they will come,” Bradley said.
By late June, John J. Sauer of Arlington Heights was “done with the cicadas!”
“While my property wasn’t overwhelmed, I longed for some quiet time without bugs landing on me,” he added.
But the bugs proved to be a muse for Sauer who wrote the following poem.
“See you later, Mr. Cicada”
I like to remember when you weren’t around
Sometime in mid-May before you emerged from the ground
For every day I awake, I hear your nearby din
And see the shell of your body from whence you shed your skin.
So now you have wings and you set out to fly
But why land on me? I am not your guy
If it’s a horny mate that you’re looking for
Try the bugs on the bark of the tree next door.
You won’t be here long, but this I did learn
In another 17 years, it’s your children who will return
The question I have to ask regarding 2041
Will I be here or will my time on earth be done?
Looking ahead, and thinking about that date
I hope to be a lucid and spry 78
To meet this brood’s grandchildren, I’d be fortunate to be alive
I wonder what the world will be like then when I’m the age of 95?!
After that, we are probably pushing it to think I’d be around
112? I’d have to bet I’ll also be 6 feet underground
Back to reality, today, and remembering what once was
Hey! If anyone wants to get together just give me a BUZZ.