Catherine Arra

The Drumming of Insects Begins
 
Rhythms replace birdsong,
lyrical lovemaking, circling nests.
 
Mating complete, feathered wings depart, leaving
their endemic cousins to replace melody with patterned
 
percussions: katydids, crickets, locusts,
relentless punctuation, frenetic keening
 
doleful death dirges
ushering summer to her end. 
 
 
She’s exhausted now, spent from laboring green,
flowering, folding bluebirds, squirrels, bees
 
into her arms, sheltering frail-legged fawns,
fickle snakes in camouflage.
 
Before she slips away, she turns
once more to applaud the confidence
 
of sunflowers, crescendo of impatiens,
to exhale sachets of basil, lavender, mint.
 
I breathe her, bathe and drown until I’m
ceremoniously anointed, embalmed and ready.
 
 
 
 

Catherine Arra is a native of the Hudson Valley in upstate New York, where she lives with wildlife and changing seasons until winter, when she migrates to the Space Coast of Florida. She is the author of eight poetry collections. Arra teaches part-time and facilitates local writing groups. Find her at www.catherinearra.com