Cicadas II

For a whole life they have crouched alone and dumb
in patient ugliness enduring the humble dark.
Nothing has shaken that world below the world
except the far-off thunder, the strain of roots and storm.
Sunk in an airless night they neither slept nor woke
but hanging on the tree's blood dreamed vaguely the dreams of the tree,
and put on wavering leaves, wing-veined, too delicate to see.

(From The Cicadas, by Judith Wright)

I love the picture of the cicadas dreaming the trees dreams because they live off its' 'blood'. What a cool idea.