Locusts in the Sycamores - with audio

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It was 4 o'clock in the afternoon when I heard them.
Locusts, 7 yr locusts were sounding their life in the Sycamores, Maples and Aspens.
They had come early, for this was only August and not yet past the afternoon.
I remembered how they told of the coming of evening and eventually winter, Long ago, when I was a little boy at play.  I would feel the sadness come over me. I knew that it was the end of Summer, the beginning of Autumn, the coming of Winter.  I did not understand why this should affect me so. The passage of time meant nothing to me then. It did however, to the subconscious clock within me; that which communed with the eternal.

The locusts announced; "another time and era are passing, never to come again."

Once  I was old enough to go to school, the locusts warned that it was time to come in from play, get ready for bed; and in the morning go to school. That which flourished in play with friends, died in school. Now, every time those cicadas with their cousins the locusts called out, it was like Sunday night before school and the end of summer all over again. The feeling ran deep within my being like hot brown molasses in a slow sinking procession down each bone.

It was an omen. Winter was coming early and it would be a long, cold, dark presence this year.  My mind flashed back to brief moments of months before. Looking down each morning while picking up the newspaper, I would encounter an array of ants working furiously at their endeavor of survival. Marching every day or evening without fail across my sidewalk, from one Juniper to the next, they were there. Then, the prophet Solomon's words came to mind: " Observe the ant....." Prepare for the future without ceasing, and in the meantime be content in your sweaty toil; as well in your eating and sleeping. Why? Because Winter is coming.

Well, this year it was coming early. The signs were called out; the ants in tiny somber marching, and the locusts in eerie clicking song. Even the leaves had prematurely begun to fall.

Mother had been in the hospital on and off for the past 5 years. Dad as well. He was only a shadow of the man I knew growing up. The man who had once right crossed and knocked down a burly bearded fireman with tattoos who was refusing to help put out a burning building. A police dog had stopped him from continuing to pummel that sot. The maladies of age had shaken him, weakened his heart, taken away the pleasure of walking, and narrowed his sight. Mother on the other hand,
had undergone the hand of time with multiple and sundry plagues common to our generation.
She had also lost the thrill of allure and clever wit that had once brought Dr.s, Surgeons, Lawyers, Publishers and Poets to the cocktail parties and dinners that were hosted in our home. Life had now become a matter of complaint, she also had been robbed of the simpler pleasures of walking, eating and the enjoyment of company.

Autumn is here, Winter is coming whispered the locusts in the Sycamores. And suddenly, a finger loomed up within me, pointing me back to Solomon, " All is but vanity and a chasing of the wind."
All of this wonderment is passing...... , fleeting.........., flying away,  and I also along with it.  Mortality will one day come to call with its capital expression.  I like Scrooge joined the community of humbuggeries and naysayers to its proposition. ...In confusion, I stumbled about, not focussing, hiding in my mind, lest feelings and emotion should overtake me ......I felt dizzy at times.

My Parents lay in their beds most of the day, living and participating in life through CNN,
"Little House on the Prairie,"and pharmaceutical commercials on TV.  Slumber followed only to be interrupted by the habit of meals and ablutions. The wind was blowing the leaves right off the Maples. It carried along the chorus of wings in the trees; Winter is coming, Autumn is here. They weren't supposed to be here yet. They'd come early. It would be a long hard unpredictable Winter. The kind that makes a man's heart lonely and searching. The kind of cold that causes one to seek out the reassuring warmth of a few close friends. The kind of white blanketing in the night that propels all souls toward the Almighty Eternal. Let it blow then; like a dog, let the wind lick up these tears before they fall.

A clanging silence, a rigid river of dancing contradiction that flashes in a flurry before the eye of the soul; the pintele - (the spark of life) - threatened at once by the coming flood. Like lightning giving birth to thunder, shouts out the rainfall, so to the ants, with the buzzing of wings, and the crossing of tiny legs told the leaves to fall. And, as the leaves rushed along, they seemed to rustle out the message; the Autumn is here, the Winter is near....

And come it must! For this has been the way til now; ordained for each one to tarry an allotted time until the next season is ushered in, even as the one that is, passes over the falls into the Mind of timeless forgotten eternity.