Greg Bales

Cicada Love

Every summer around the middle of July attention in my house turns to cicadas, not because that’s when they begin to leave their discarded skins all over town and sing to keep us up in the evening, but because that’s when Newton begs every hour to be taken for a walk and stares gloomily out the window when we don’t. The reason? He eats cicadas. No, that’s not strong enough. In summer, my dog’s every thought is about cicadas. Could he devise a way to climb out on the branches of trees and catch their crunchy little bodies between his teeth, he would. When we do take him out, he sniffs unmolted nymphs out of the grass, jumps to snatch flying adults out of the sky, and grabs deceased cicadas from the sidewalk. All of these he gobbles up. When he grabs a live adult, it buzzes its buzzy sound—a final loud, brief scream—and then all goes silent. Unsatisfied, like an eighteenth-century New World naturalist, he begins the search for another. And another. And another. At night, as the cicadas he hasn’t eaten sing him to sleep, he dreams of eating them.

About the time Newton was in full frenzy, Claudia McGehee published a lovely little poem:

¹ OMG this drawing is SO CUTE.

² McGehee is an artist and illustrator who lives in Iowa City, makes wonderful books like A Woodland Counting Book and A Tallgrass Prairie Alphabet, and writes a nifty blog about her work. You should buy something from her.