When you walk through the wooded streets of Washington DC in August, you hear cicadas. In a park, such as Fort Reno Park, the sound comes at you from every direction, from every tree. This scratching pulse of the cicadas gradually ebbs and flows, but never stops. The onomatopoeic modern Greek term, tzizikas, says it all. It reminds me of 90s electronic music. There was this goal then, to digitally mimic the sounds of nature. I heard the mimicking first and now I’m hearing the real thing.

I was on a long urban hike through Rock Creek Park the other day, wandering through a creek bed where six yellow butterflies joined me momentarily. As I walked up Park Road, up towards my home in Columbia Heights, there was a loud crackling sound on the sidewalk behind me. I turned around. A mother and her young son and daughter, walking the other direction behind me, stopped and turned around as well. On the sidewalk, in between us all, a cicada lay dying, scratching out its final tones. Its wings glinted blue as it flipped itself over on its abdomen. Slowly approaching the cicada, the children sported twin frowns of empathy, and they said “pobre” to the cicada, again and again. Their mom smiled at me as she told her kids “say goodbye to the cicada” and they walked on.