Sound of cicadas means summer’s here to stay

The sound of summer’s height is the cicada. You always hear the first one. It’s a sound you haven’t thought about for months, but, ah: the whine, the drone, the rattling diminution. There you are! Welcome back. Summer is now complete. The foundation has set.

And you think: The State Fair is around the corner, and then the first leaf turns and drops, the breakfast cereal boxes have ghosts, and, before you know it, you’re down in the basement hauling out the box of wreaths, bulbs and garlands.

No! Stop that. Concentrate on the present, because it’s all we’ve got. Listen to the wisdom of the cicada. Be in the moment. Be annoying, but in the moment.

I was under the impression that our cicadas came out every seven years. Not so. We don’t have cyclical cicadas, aka periodical cicadas. We have annuals, also known as Dog Day Cicadas.

It’s a reference to the star Sirius, the brightest star in the constellation Dog Major, which does not resemble a dog at all, but looks like those inflatable tube-men who wave their arms on top of car dealerships and mattress stores. The Greeks didn’t have those — as far as we know — so they went with “dog.”

Anyway, there’s a point in the year when the dog star rises early, possibly because it notices the constellation Paperboy, and this ushers in a period of hot, stifling weather. That’s the “dog days” of summer. That’s when our cicadas hatch and start to complain.

This year was supposed to be different. The nation was supposed to get a nightmarish quantity of cyclical cicadas. There are versions that emerge every 13 years, and another type that comes to the surface every 17 years. The rest of the time they are underground eating things. Now and then the cycles sync, and an inordinate number of disgusting creatures wriggle out of the earth and make annoying noises while they look for mates. Spring break, in human terms.

I used to think cicadas slept when they weren’t up and droning, and the reason some came out after 13 years and others after 17 was because the latter had developed a biological snooze alarm. No. They’re alive, feeding on roots. It’s amazing to consider: insects that wriggle into the cold light of day, almost old enough to vote. And they still probably know more about current politics than people who just get their news from Instagram.

The last time the two broods, the 13- and 17-year vintage, emerged simultaneously for a loud disgusting insect sex-fest was 1803. It’s a moment to reflect how the world has changed. Thomas Jefferson was president in 1803; he isn’t anymore. So that’s one change.

You don’t expect the cicadas to notice any of the alternations great and small in the world, though. The world is better in so many ways, and it means nothing to them. Tell a cicada that the suffrage has been extended to women, or that mankind is developing rocket boosters capable of getting colonists to Mars, and it means nothing. They’re just here to mate.

“You don’t understand the significance of this,” you tell them. “Once humanity moves off Earth, we increase our chances of our species surviving a planetary catastrophe.”

“eeeeeEEEEEEEEEeeeeeee rrrrrrrr,” the cicada replies.

“Well, you say that now, but wait until the day when humankind has seeded the stars, and you’re stuck here when the sun goes nova.”

“eeeeeEEEEEEEEEeeeeeee rrrrrrrr,” the cicada replies. Translated: “Who cares, got a hot date.”

Anyway, the Midwest was supposed to be buried under billions of cicadas this year, deafened by their 100-decibel screams, until the land was thick with their disgusting corpses. I don’t remember noticing that happen. Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, but if they’d showed up at a Taylor Swift concert, there would be 1,000 grossed-out TikToks about it.

This tells you a lot about the news business these days: unless Taylor Swift is buried under half a billion screaming cicadas, everyone forgets about the cicadapocalypse prediction.

“But I heard about them,” says you, an etymologist who has Google Alerts programmed for keywords like “aphid mating frenzy” and “murder bees.” Great; tell me what happened to the murder bees, then. They’re gone from the news. Did they plead to a lesser charge?

I’m not unhappy about the lack of excess cicadas. I just know there will be a day when I realize they’ve fallen silent, and it means that summer is ending.

You always note the first one you hear, and you never know which one was the last. Listen to each one, and give them the occasional salute. For a while, it’s summer, and we’re all in this together.