Cicadas buzz like busted
streetlights, broadcasting
summer’s death rattle.
–Sarah Torribio
PS-
THE MICRO-SEASON
My use of the phrase haiku has bothered me a bit since I learned that, ideally, the form should be focused on nature. More specifically, I hear, a haiku should celebrate, commemorate–or use as a launching pad–the various micro-seasons.
I’ve always kept it simple, thinking about spring, summer, winter and fall. The simple stuff you learn in elementary school. Elementary, my Dear Watson.
In Japan, however, fully 72 cyclical and ephemeral periods have been identified. These, according to an article on NaturalistWeekly.com , include picturesque and poetically named periods like Spring Winds Thaw the Ice (Feb. 4-Feb. 8); Hibernating Creatures Open Their Doors (March 5 -March 9); Leaf Insects Turn Into Butterflies (March 15 -March 19); and, of course, The First Cherry Blossoms (March 25 – March 29).
I’m an American living in Southern Utah, known for its vivid and dramatic red rock formations and located squarely in the Mojave Desert. I’ve been here about five years now but I still haven’t taken in what micro-seasons mark my home.
Still, since haiku has become a worldwide phenomenon, the key to it all is adaptation. I guarantee that wherever you live, from Detroit to the Space Station, has its own forms of microseason.
The various cities where I lived for most of my life, suburbs east of Los Angeles, had their own micro-season phenomena. There are the famous warm, blustery Santa Ana winds. They’re exhilarating, exacerbate allergies and can be dangerous, as when trees are felled, with little care as to their landing spot. They are celebrated as a source or sign of magic in the movies “LA Story” and “The Holiday.”
And then there are the weeks in spring where wild parrots perch in trees throughout the region, looking like they got lost on their way to São Paulo.
I now live in St. George, Utah, not too far away from the scenic tourist destination of Zion National Park. It would seem, at first blush, to have a dearth of microseasons.
The high-desert climate consists of long and blistering summers, where temperatures run well over 110 degrees for days on end. It’s comprised of winters that, while mild compared to Northern Utah, still feature cold snaps that ice over windshields, and the occasional snow flurry. Travel 10 miles away in any direction and the snow really sticks.
Springs and early fall are dreamily temperate, but pass with the snap of your fingers. There are also, at various times in the year, great windstorms that sweep the region, overturning patio furniture. There are occasional thunderstorms that illuminate the sky as though God has flocked on the lights, or split the sky with forked thunderbolts.
While it’s currently winter, I have had my first micro-season occur to me. I’ll call it The Chorus of Cicadas.
Towards the end of summer, when the heat seems interminable, afternoons are marked by the unbelievably loud collective sound of cicadas, an insect I thought little about before moving here.
They occur during the waning days of summer, sometimes called the Dog Days of Summer. I’ll try to isolate the time frame of The Time of the Chorus of Cicadas more accurately, but I can certainly describe it.
Like Rocky Balboa, these days refuse to give up. Though fall approaches, the Time of the Chorus of Cicada rages against the dying of the heat. Its spokes-creatures are like a death-metal band whose members possess an exoskeleton and an ancient determination.
They perch in trees and bushes and basically own the place until the evening cools enough for the crickets to emerge, singing a gentler song. Below is the dulcet sound (yes, I’m being facetious), of a single, isolated cicada. When made by hordes of the insect, it becomes roaringly loud.
Am I complaining? No. It’s nature, raw and real. Still, when you travel to places like St. George, where cacti, yucca and Joshua trees feel at home, newcomers to these bugs will not fail to be surprised, startled and even confused.
Here’s to the microseason, and to haiku in all its iterations.
–Sarah Torribio
See more by haiku Sarah Torribio HERE
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