Writing with Juliet Iwelunmor

We saw the limits of everything, for cicadas, saw them delicate like old skin, shedding their innermost being. They would give anything, it seems, as they suckle on the trunk of trees, to live. Now I see why rest, even if for 13 years, is the beginning of everything. I pray nothing, not even the limits of this life, wake us while we rest.

Those who go through life thinking they don’t need anyone, those who forget how a day begins, those who feel they have arrived simply because they have, should take time to see how cicadas inhabit the earth. They are all over Saint Louis now, reminding us why change is cleansing and to live, to rest, you made need to shed dead skin. Keep the lessons of cicadas.