Cicadas and Eros
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Anne Carson
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So we are talking delta function here, a concentrated instant of extreme pleasure without before and after. They only exist to have pleasure, and the preparation for this event in the underground is infinite in comparison.
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It makes me think of Plato’s cave: the larvae and pupae hidden away in the dark, dreaming of a life outside, which has no resemblance with their present habitat.
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I also cannot resist another comparison: with our own life. It is an infinitesimally short event, a mere blip on a background of billions of years. We slumber for eons before and after our appearance on earth. I will try to write a poem capturing this Gleichnis one of these days.
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Since 17 years is a long time, this will be the last of my cicada years. The regular rhythm of days, weeks, months, years makes survival difficult to predict, but at age 80, I will in all likelihood not experience another year of cicadas. Since I have never seen one in real life, only dozens on the internet and the New York Times, I think I’m going to be OK with that knowledge.
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