Summer

Rhythmic thrumming fills the night
December lullaby

Sydney swelters in the summer heat.   I rise early to walk in the freshness of the dawn.

The trees reverberate with sound, their trunks festooned with cicada nymph shells.

I pause to help an Orange Drummer hatchling, wings ensnared by the carapace.

At 120 decibels, the noise is deafening, and I move away.

It is a perfect morning, sunshine glittering on eucalyptus leaves, a light breeze teasing the treetops.  I dream of summers past, king tides in Sydney harbour, of salt-encrusted skin and peeling sunburn, family gatherings, and soft, velvet nights.

Our world is tired; war, poverty and corruption  touch every nation, our media filled with the endless drone of catastrophic news.  But on a morning walk, where new life explodes in the trees, oblivious to humanity’s travails, I am grateful for the will of Nature to survive – and thrive.

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