I am Stella, Queen of the Olde English Bulldogges. The cicadas are dying. Here. And here.
Me: I know. You need not pile them at my feet.
Stella: But they are dying, Lady Human! Why?
Me: It is the end of their season. They have done their job.
Stella: But they only hatched out a few weeks ago. They waited in the ground for 17 years and only stayed a few weeks? I don’t understand.
Me: They hatched. They sang in the trees. They mated. They laid their eggs. And 17 summers from now…
Stella: …the eggs they just laid will hatch and the babies will do it all over again. How sad.
Me: Or how comforting. It’s a great cycle. The locusts…sorry, cicadas that hatch next year will be the ones that were laid as eggs 16 years ago this summer and so on and so on. A continuous chain that keeps looping back.
Stella: Why now?
Me: Summer is ending.
Stella: The trees are silent.
Me: Seasons change.
Stella: I don’t like change.
Me: Neither do I.
Stella: I’ll miss them.
Me: They’ll be back.
Stella: Sure as summer.
Copyright 2017 H.J. Hill All Rights Reserved.
Bulldoggy 
The Cicadaes go faster than us and wait longer than us. We love them as they come and miss them as they go. Purrs, Quicksilver et al
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