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Editor’s note:
Six weeks ago, here in Toronto, we heard the voices of the first cicadas of the summer of 2013…
Their distinctive sound seemed to have gone silent after a week of dreamy buzzing in the heat – because the weather turned cool and rainy, who knows? – but we’ve just now had several days of hot weather again, and the buzzing is back – beautiful “chamber-ensembles” of male cicadas in treetops, calling to potential mates. These are probably Magicadas, so-called “periodical cicadas” at the end of their 17-year cycle (most of it spent underground feeding on the sap of tree roots, and only the final six to eight weeks lived above ground to mate and then die). Here in Ontario we are at the upper limit of the East Coast Brood or Brood II (whose range is North Carolina to Upstate New York). It is possible, too, that we are hearing adventurers-further-north from the Onondaga Brood.
The cicadas’ distinctive mate-calling sound puts us in mind of a song by María Elena Walsh.
Walsh described the song as originally “about life, an artist’s life. Sometimes you’re very well known, people adore you, and then the next day nobody knows you, no one loves you. That was the idea.”
“Como la Cigarra” was composed in 1972 but ten years later had re-appeared as a poem-song metaphor for survival – specifically, the survival of the Argentinian people as a nation emerging after years of fear living under dictatorships.
(A Special Thanks to The Wyckoff Journal for the quotation from Señora Walsh.)
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María Elena Walsh
(Argentinian writer/singer-composer, 1930-2011)
“Like the Cicada” (1972)
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I was killed so many times.
I died so many times
however, here I am
reviving myself.
I thank misfortune
and I thank the hand with the dagger
because it killed me so badly
that I went on singing.
.
Singing in the sun
like the Cicada
after a year
under the earth
just like a survivor,
that’s returning from war.
.
So many times was I wiped away
so many times did I disappear,
I went to my own funeral
alone and crying
I tied a knot in my handkerchief
but then I forgot afterwards
that it hadn’t been the only time
and I went on singing.
.
Singing in the sun,
like the Cicada
after a year
under the earth
just like a survivor
that returns from war.
.
So many times will you be killed
so many will you revive
so many years will you spend
despairing.
And at that moment of shipwreck
and of darkness
someone will rescue you
to go on singing.
.
Singing in the sun
like the Cicada,
after a year
below the earth
just like a survivor
returning from war. |
María Elena Walsh
(Escritora/cantautora argentina, 1930-2011)
“Como la cigarra” (1972)
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Tantas veces me mataron,
tantas veces me morí,
sin embargo estoy aquí
resucitando.
Gracias doy a la desgracia
y a la mano con puñal,
porque me mató tan mal,
y seguí cantando.
.
Cantando al sol,
como la cigarra,
después de un año
bajo la tierra,
igual que sobreviviente
que vuelve de la guerra.
.
Tantas veces me borraron,
tantas desaparecí,
a mi propio entierro fui,
solo y llorando.
Hice un nudo del pañuelo,
pero me olvidé después
que no era la única vez
y seguí cantando.
.
Cantando al sol,
como la cigarra,
después de un año
bajo la tierra,
igual que sobreviviente
que vuelve de la guerra.
.
Tantas veces te mataron,
tantas resucitarás
tantas noches pasarás
desesperando.
Y a la hora del naufragio
y a la de la oscuridad
alguien te rescatará,
para ir cantando.
.
Cantando al sol,
como la cigarra,
después de un año
bajo la tierra,
igual que sobreviviente
que vuelve de la guerra. |
