Now they've stopped.
Now they've started again.
Through the open window, a cool breeze reaches in to cool my cheek. My dog rustles in the dirt in the garden under the window box. It seems like deafening noise compared to the cicadas.
Undaunted by the silence, more cars race by. A motorcycle challenges the early meditation. Even the birds are mostly quiet. Even the leaves in the wind make hardly a sound.
Only the cicadas go on, chirping to each other.
Somewhere a cricket starts calling. A frog, perhaps, chirrups at some distance.
The harrowing sound of a tractor-trailer downshifting as it comes over the hill into town, loud and cyclical – but it's gone now.
Deep in the woods, the birds begin to sing to each other. They stop. They start again.
The leaves rustle. Trees whisper to one another.
Suddenly the wingbeats of Chickadee-dee-dee-dee-dees, and they shriek at each other in all their voices as if in some unforeseen distress.
Some other bird – a Blue Jay maybe – yawns in the distance.
The Chickadees calm down, talking in turn. They approach the ailing dogwood tree but the feeder is empty.
They leave. Only the stirring of trees, now, as they wake.
The breeze has warmed up – indicating that soon, day will be fully upon us in all its stifling weight.
The cat stirs against the hollow cardboard paper towel tube on the sill of the picture window.
Cars, in more numerous ranks than before, rumble through town. Another tractor-trailer or two grumble into a slower speed.
The refrigerator hums.
It's almost 9 o'clock, after all - that's nearly noon! Why are the humans still in their beds? The cicadas have been up for hours.
Branches wobble slightly, but the wind is resting. The road is empty. The birds – silent.
The chirping cicadas chitter on.
The quiet early morning, I spend in solitude, reminds me that magic is just beyond my reach.
…
Maybe the birds will return if I fill the feeder.