More Cicada Haiku

Nate Johnson
2 min readJun 9, 2021
Brood X cicada on someone’s hand

Cicada Haiku #22
Dive bombing your head,
it’s hard to appreciate
their inherent worth.

Cicada Haiku #23
As loud as they are,
they still can’t drown out voices
inside my own head.

Cicada Haiku #24
It kinda gets old.
At first it was exciting.
But SHUT THE HELL UP!

Cicada Haiku #25
Oh my God so loud.
Droning on for weeks and weeks.
When is it over?

Cicada Haiku #26
They look so weird like
aliens from outer space.
They are hard to love.

Cicada Haiku #27
Their chorus pulses,
cranking up anxiety.
Louder and louder.

Cicada Haiku #28
But aren’t they locusts?
No, those are the grasshoppers.
These are different.

Cicada Haiku #29
Some people hate them.
But others love them so much.
Most people hate them.

Cicada Haiku #30
They drill holes in trees.
But they don’t do it to us.
Thankfully, they don’t.

Cicada Haiku #31
They don’t bite or sting.
They totally ignore us.
We can’t ignore them.

Cicada Haiku #32
Some people eat them.
The food truck makes bug tacos.
Not gonna eat that.

Cicada Haiku #33
Shellfish allergies
apply to cicadas too.
That doesn’t make sense.

Cicada Haiku #34
Are they flying shrimp?
Mudbugs soaring through the air?
It’s just so dang weird.

Cicada Haiku #35
Early colonists
encountered cicadas too.
What must they have thought?

Cicada Haiku #36
Some hatch every year.
They’re not that big of a deal.
Brood X is diff’rent.

Cicada Haiku #37
There’s a soccer team
that plays in the local league
named after Brood X.

Cicada Haiku #38
Do you remember
seventeen years ago when
they last hatched like this?

Cicada Haiku #39
Counting on fingers,
and thinking about the bugs.
I write my haiku.

Cicada Haiku #40
The next state over
has no clue what’s going on.
They only hatch here.

Cicada Haiku #41
They live here with us
hidden underground for years.
We forget they’re here.

Cicada Haiku #42
Their far away sound,
not the hissing sound up close,
is pitched at an E.

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Nate Johnson

Information security analyst and consultant. Incident response specialist. Jazz musician. Fly angler. Dad. All around decent fellow.