Cicada Art on Sidewalk
                                                                              (Montebello Ave, Mountain View, CA)

Cicada Art on Sidewalk

Under my favorite Eucalyptus Tree
on Montebello Ave in Mountain View,
is a cicada image on the sidewalk
painted by winds of Mother Nature.

Tzee-tzee-tzee-tzee buzzing is 90 decibels,
as loud as a lawn mower, whining sound
of electrical wires rising and falling, or
pressing scissors against a grinding wheel.

Billions of cicadas coming out to play
in 2021 after 17 years underground,
they came out in 2004 and will
resurface again in 2038.

Recall hearing them buzzing on trees in
a Shanghai courtyard summer 1948 when
my sister was two and I was 7-years old,
but have not seen them much in America.

Encyclopedia Britannica has photo
of a cicada similar to the sidewalk art
as well as stamps from Japan and Fiji,
with stout body and transparent wings.

Unlike locusts plague that devastate crops,
cicadas are harmless, just quite noisy—
rabbits, racoons, squirrels, birds love to feast
on them as they're plentiful with no defense.

Sir David Attenborough spots a male cicada
buzzing to attract a female mate, & imitates
female's response, snapping his fingers,
the male follows and flies on his face.


    — Peter Y. Chou
        Mountain View, 11-11-2021



Cicada on Tree
(deafening sound)


Japan 1295 Cicada
(issued 8-15-1977)


Fiji 1242a Cicada
(issued 6-30-2010)


Attenborough snapped his
fingers, cicada flew on his face


Sound of Cicada