Cicadas, a 17-year jubilee

Spring shows itself in countless forms, and many come from underground – archetypally as green plants and flowers emerging from the soil. This year we’re also seeing holes. For the past month, pockmarks have opened from the underworld, as if someone had jabbed their hiking poles in the ground all over the forest. Many of these holes are accompanied by daubs of mud. They are cicada chimneys. Born in 2008, Magicicada members of Brood XIV have reached adolescence and are ready for a brief adulthood. For 17 years, in utter, underground darkness, their pale soft bodies have sucked the sun’s energy out of tree roots. For the past few weeks, they have been excavating towards the light. As the soil continues to warm into May, they’ll climb out of their tunnels and release 17 years worth of solar energy back into the forest’s canopy in the form of three weeks of interminable song.

I’ve been anticipating this spring since 2008, the year we began building our house, putting down real, deep roots in this community. We harvested the pines, and worked closely with new neighbors, friends, and community members to cut and fit our timbers. I poured the footers in March. By May we had our pier foundation and began to frame the floor we would live on for the rest of our lives. By June the forests were alive with a buzzing, a constant drone. They were welcoming us into the community in their own language. They weren’t everywhere in the forest, but there was a high concentration in the wooded acres surrounding our housesite. 

Seventeen years is short enough that a fortunate person, living in the same location, may witness periodical cicadas coming around several times in their lifetime. Seventeen years is long enough that significant life events occur during each period, and my mind and body’s aging between each cycle is tangible. The summer Brood XIV last emerged, I was 33 – in my physical prime – framing the floor of our home with 18-foot 2”x12”s and cutting half-dovetail mortises into 16’ 8”x12” timber beams. Seventeen years before that I was 16, wrapping up my first season on my high school’s varsity baseball team – it would be several more years before I moved to the land of Brood XIV. Now I’m 50 with a gray beard, and every time I overtorque a tendon, the ache takes weeks to go away. If all goes well, I’ll get to see this brood return two more times.       

My anticipation of this spring began swelling two winters ago when I was digging footers for a neighbor's carport. In the hole closest to the treeline, each shovelful turned up several full-size cicada larvae. 

I have now inhabited this site for 17 years. I know so much more about this forest that’s been home for 26 years. Just last week I learned an entire new chapter about a few of the various species of freshwater fishes in the river, and some of their inspiring behaviors. Seventeen years from now, how much more will I know? 

Do the blue jays and squirrels and wood thrushes have any idea of the bonanza they are about to encounter? Have they noticed the fresh holes excavated in the soil? The daubs of muddy chimneys on the ground? Can they hear the faint scrabbling of thousands of larvae tunneling to the surface? Do they smell ripening cicada grubs?

This time around, I’m undistracted by house construction, and more fully immersed in a state of awareness of the ecological goings-on in my neighborhood. My friend Randy first pointed out the tunnels to me in early April. Now we’re seeing the very first adults emerging. No song has been reported, even from my informers in Asheville, which is typically a week or so ahead phenologically. I’m impressed at the slow and deliberate pace of their emergence. It makes sense – after all they have waited 17 years for their moment. 

Periodical cicadas are the original mass movement. Once they get going, their collective voice will be unignorable. The forest always has something to teach us. 

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I anticipate that the cicadas’ emergence this year will coincide with the emergence of another of our charismatic insect species: blue ghost fireflies. The cicada larvae have been tunneling underground for 16 years & 10 months, gathering the wisdom of the forest; the blue ghost larvae have been cruising the forest duff for 10 months, preparing for their moment to shine in the dark. Over the past couple of years, I’ve had the pleasure of introducing writers like Margaret Renkl and Georgann Eubanks to blue ghosts, so they could share the magic with their readers. I’d be delighted to share the experience directly with you.