The Cicada Shell
A cicada shell
After crying through one whole life
A deep, thick sound remains
The cicada cried.
On a summer day
when the heat, once burning red,
cooled black and poured itself
onto the ground,
one breath
fell—
and lay there.
On a day full of thoughts,
wherever things had bloomed
and withered like flowers,
one dry wing
lay quietly
there.
Drip— drip—
They said rain was coming.
Beneath the blue sky,
when it had cried
as if its heart would burst,
one eye of a man
fell
and lay upon the earth.
Swallowing hunger,
unable to say a word,
it simply
lay there.
I gently lifted
the cicada shell,
folded so delicately,
and placed it
in the shade of the wall.
Drip— drip—
They said rain was coming.
I looked at the shell
for a while,
then took up
the rain again.
The silent trace of a life
is always like that—
sudden,
and quiet.
That man’s eye,
between summer and autumn,
a crying cicada.