Suzannah V. Evans

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A Cicada Sings, an Ant Brings

After the fable by La Fontaine, after Aesop 

shuck-shuck shush-shush sh-sh-drr
hisha-hisha-hisha-hisha- 
shh-drr shika-shika-shika-shika shhh
chuck-chuck-chuck-drr-shh-shusha-shh 

all summer, I sing
shade-hidden, vibrating

membranes 
on my abdomen

eyeing traces 
of the sea’s rustlings

sh-sh-shush-shush-s-s-s-s-shush
chicha-chicha-chicha-chicha

*

                                                                                                            I
                                                                                                            gather                specks

                                                                                                            leaving
                                                                                                            trails     of   
                                                                                                            p h e r o m o n e s 

                                                                                                            like 
                                                                                                            b r e a d c r u m b s 

                                                                                                            antennae   
                                                                                                            t-o- 
                                                                                                            the   

                                                                                                            ground

                                                                                                            work hard, work hard

                                                                                                            *

shush-shush-shush-shush-shush-shush-shush

I say with the maracas of my body

beating my lacy wings
saying all sorts of things

to the Klein blue sky

*

                                                                                                            I
                                                                                                            have 
                                                                                                                         n o 

                                                                                                            time        
                                                                                                            for
                                                                                                            m u s i c 

                                                                                                            slow 
                                                                                                            travelling /

                                                                                                            slow  
                                                                                                            gathering / 

                                                                                                            work hard, work hard

                                                                                                            f
                                                                                                            o
                                                                                                            r
                                                                                                            m
                                                                                                            i
                                                                                                            n
                                                                                                            g

                                                                                                            l
                                                                                                            i
                                                                                                            n
                                                                                                            e
                                                                                                            s

                                                                                                            *

chchchch-chchchch-a-ch-a-ch-ach-ch-ch
a-chuh-chuh-chuh-chuh-chuh-chuh-
s-s-s-s-s-sh-sh-sh-sh- [pause]

                                    shush-shush 

I may be cryptic, hard to see
but by the sea

I buckle and unbuckle 
my corrugated exoskeleton – the ant heckles – 

and I susurrate
to the sell-out

theatre of strollers

*

                                                                                                            w 
                                                                                                                        o
                                                                                                                                    r
                                                                                                                        k
                                                                                                            h                      a
                                                                                                                        r
                                                                                                                                    d 

                                                                                                                        *

sh-ch-sh-ch-sh-ch-sh-chuh
ahi-ahi-ach-achi-achi-achi-achi-achi

singing with my whole body, the whole hull
of my body 

singing so that all I do is sing to the sweet
wind 

and the sweet wind 
takes my song

to the ossicles of passers-by 
and the tiny feet of ants on the ground

tread softly, ant

*

                                                                                                                        i t 
                                                                                                                        t a k e s 
                                                                                                                        s o 
                                                                                                                        l on g 
                                                                                                                        t o 
                                                                                                                        g a t h e r 
                                                                                                                        f o o d 
                                                                                                                        o f c o u r s e 
                                                                                                                        t h e r e ’ s 
                                                                                                                        n    o       n      e
                                                                                                                        t o 
                                                                                                                        s p a r e 
                                                                                                                        f o r 
                                                                                                                        t h o s e 
                                                                                                                        w h o 
                                                                                                                        s i n g  

                                                                                                                        * 

shchu-shchu-shchu-shchu-shchu

*

Note: This speech sequence is written after la Fontaine’s retelling of Aesop’s fable ‘The Grasshopper and the Ant’, in which a hungry grasshopper, who has spent the summer singing, begs for food from an ant and is refused. The moral relates to the idea of hard work and forward planning. La Fontaine’s telling, however, recasts the tale as one about compassion, in which the grasshopper is a sort of artist, valued for her song. Questions around the role of artists in society seem particularly urgent now, in the context of a global pandemic where some organisations and people are given support over others.

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SUZANNAH V. EVANS is the winner of a 2020 Northern Writers’ Award from New Writing North. Her poems appear in Carcanet’s New Poetries VIII and her second poetry pamphlet Brightwork is forthcoming with Guillemot Press in May 2021.