For Kieran

I ran over a toad today with my lawn mower. I didn't even see it there, which is slightly odd because I am always watching for things not to kill with my machines and movement. I just looked down, and there was a strange small pile of guts and organs, with two perfectly gorgeous little intact toad's feet. I got down and closely watched the eviscerated pile for a while, turning it over a few times with a stick. I completely expected the little toad heart to still be beating. But death must have settled very quickly because all that was there was stillness. How quickly Life can cease.
I am grateful for every dead animal I have studied over the years, and there have been many. Handling, smelling, taking apart, eating, burying, preserving, admiring. I have gained much respect and familiarity for the animal kingdom through experiencing the death of it. I still hang out with dead animals whenever I get the chance.
Perhaps it is precisely from learning just how quickly Life can end that it has come how much I favor studying living creatures these days. I am learning how to observe an animal in the action of living its brief and precious Life. I sometimes can't believe how long it has taken me to notice some of the incredible things that are occurring around me all the time! The pileated woodpecker slamming its spectacular face into trees all day to eat, to breed, to rest. The luna moth spinning its coppery cocoon out of leaves and what surely must be some sort of awesome bodily fluid to make that shimmery effect. The indigo buntings fighting for mating rights with that special female. The naked cicada subterrainously waiting for the moment when the stars are lined up and the fish are bitin' to emerge from the earth and climb a tree.
The first time I experienced a massive cicada hatch was 17 yrs ago, when I was living in Virginia. One evening or morning- I forget which-I was walking in the woods, and I stopped to just stand still for a few moments. I got the odd sensation that the earth was moving all around me. I looked down and refocused to discover that the earth and all the trees were covered with thousands upon thousands of cicadas in all stages of hatching and shedding. Imagine my surprise. They were absolutely everywhere. For the next several weeks, all you could hear was their hauntingly prehistoric-sounding chorus. "Pha-roah! Pha-roah!" is what they were singing. Or so said my favorite neighbor, Hobart Shiflett. He said some of the best things. The song of the periodical cicadas was the soundtrack that ushered me into the very beginning of my adult life. I turned 20 to this song.
They say this year is going to be another big one on the cicada front. Has it really been 17 years? Are these cicadas that are hatching out starting now the offspring of those thousands that crept around me that day in the woods17 years ago? They've been feeding on creepy crawlies down there in the belly of the earth while I have been up here coming into my own at my own special slow, 17-yr pace. I was standing on them the whole time.
Excuse me for saying this, but that blows my fucking mind.
Happy cicada emergence, Kieran.

**Author's note: The periodical cicadas (Magicicada) are a group of several species, which remain underground for 13 or 17 years, depending on the species, emerging in large broods to breed and lay eggs in tree branches in the early summer of their year. To be exact, I do not know which species I experienced in May of 1996, but for the poetic sake of this essay, I am assuming they were one of the 17-yr species.