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Add one of these Cicada love poems to your outdoor wedding ceremony

Published Thursday, May. 20th, 2021

Is your outdoor wedding ceremony scheduled during cicada season? Why not embrace it with one of these love poems!

Cicadas show up in countless stories and works of art, with descriptions of their shrill mating song going as far back through time as our written records will take us. In ancient Japanese texts they symbolize life and rebirth, and in Greek mythology, unending love. And they’ve chirped and chattered throughout centuries of idyllic pastoral poetry, with references resurfacing era after era -- much like cicadas themselves.

But as Brood X emerges across the north-eastern U.S., with plans to stay through the end of June, brides and grooms with outdoor wedding plans are feeling less than enthusiastic about their noisy, uninvited guests.

Short of moving a wedding indoors or postponing for another day, however, there’s not much anyone in Brood X’s path can do to escape their frenetic siren song.

Instead of lamenting this unique circumstance, why not embrace it? There’s plenty of symbolism to enjoy in the cicada’s long journey, perseverance, and tireless pursuit of love and purpose.

In honor of cicada season, add a line or two from one of these poems to your wedding ceremony, or recite one together as a special reading:

Haiku from The Narrow Road to the Deep North (Oku no hosomichi)
by Matsuo Bashō, translated from Japanese by Donald Keene

Shizukasa ya
Such stillness-

iwa ni shimi-iru
The cries of the cicadas

semi no koe
Sink into the rocks.

An ode to the cicada
From “Anacreontea,” Greece circa 5 A. D., translated by Rory B. Egan

We know that you are royally blest
Cicada when, among the tree-tops,
You sip some dew and sing your song;
For every single thing is yours
That you survey among the fields
And all the things the woods produce,
The farmers' constant company,
You damage nothing that is theirs;
Esteemed you are by every human
As the summer's sweet-voiced prophet,
The Muses love you, and Apollo too,
Who's gifted you with high-pitched song.
Old age does nothing that can wear you,
Earth's sage and song-enamored son;
You suffer not, being flesh-and-blood-less
A god-like creature, virtually.

love poem in a burning year
by Danielle (Dani) Montgomery

i want to show you my love
like a handful of cicada shells
glimmering green under august sun.

i want to show you
my love
like bits of blue glass
ocean smoothed.

here,
polished by sand and sweaty fingers:
my love,
the beauty that comes from all this
breaking and dying.

Cicadas, from Joyful Noise
by Paul Fleischman
(intended to be read aloud by two voices)

Afternoon, mid-August
Two cicadas singing                Two cicadas singing
Air kiln-hot, lead heavy
Five cicadas humming            Five cicadas humming
Thunderheads northwestward
Twelve cicadas buzzing            Twelve cicadas buzzing
Up and down the street
the mighty choir’s                the mighty choir’s
assembling                    assembling
Shrill cica-
das                        Ci-
droning                   cadas

Droning
in the elms
Three years                    Three years
spent underground
among the roots
in darkness                    in darkness
Now they’re breaking ground
and climbing up
the tree trunks
splitting skins
and singing                    and singing
Jubilant
rejoicing                    cicadas
pouring out their
fervent praise                    fervent praise
for heat and light
their hymn                    their hymn
sung to the sun
Cicadas                    Cicadas
Whining
whin-
ing                        ci
cadas
whirring
whir
ring                        ci
cadas
pulsing
pulsing
chanting from the tree tops            chanting from the tree tops
sending
forth their                    sending
booming                    forth their
boisterous                    booming
joyful noise!                    joyful noise!