BITTERSWEET CICADAS
It must be cicadas I hear
And raccoons and crickets each year…
Good mem’ries of days
And nights, August haze,
As a family spending two weeks out here.
In Douglas, Massachusetts, my Dad
Had built a little house on his land…
A cottage where we
Returned to see
The relatives, all that we had.
Our cottage started simply
With one bedroom, four walls and chimney…
For a bathroom, an outhouse,
For company, a mouse
That our cat, nearly blind, didn’t see.
In time, we graduated from a well
Hand-dug by my Dad in the dell…
With a bathroom installed,
Less buckets we hauled,
Water heated on the stove to break the chill.
For years it had no TV or phone
But with relatives around we weren’t alone…
Everything tasted fresh
Like the fish Dad would catch,
As long as no one choked on a bone.
Ah, sleeping, the musical cicadas
Would jingle in summer’s own cadence…
Beds smelled of mothballs,
Picnics near waterfalls,
Getting renewed by August radiance.
Cicadas*, Mom didn’t like, I’m certain,
Especially inside on the curtain…
My wife’s the same way,
The cicada will pay
As if the cicada would hurt them?
Alas, the house is gone…
My wife and I had to sell and move on,
Taxes and maintenance
Not in provenance,
Now the site is level with the lawn.
These August night sounds bittersweet
Remind me in part of defeat…
I lost family land
Expense out of hand,
The memory is all that I keep.
—Jonathan Caswell
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