Cicada Song Poem by Michael Galvin

They climb away from wombs of earth,
not quite living, nor yet born,
compelled by blind thirst for air
the clamour of the world entombs.

They climb again - far, far
above the tunnels of their birth -
until the darker tree they seek
delivers to their void searchlights
the pulse of liberation. There they shake,
crowded and split by uncoiling green,

and their soft, panelled armour and veined glass
go glimmering from shells
those visiting the tree at day break off,
weigh in the hand,

and dream release of tender things into accepting air
fulfils the riddle of their emptiness.