Muse

Out of so many small deaths sidestepped,
glanced away from, this one I bring with me:
a fruit of the season—summer's wild
fertility of sound drained note by note
even as new voices burst from their cases.
It should be in earth, this husk of song;
mated or unmated, it has passed beyond
a purpose shaped through buried years.
Now it imprints sight, cadences memory,
stored like grain for winter: against times
when snowdrifts of silence burden me,
when I touch meanings not to be uttered.
Weightless, with no sign of decay,
a mute cicada, ready for resurrection.