summer songs

Is there another sound so indicative of summer as a mid-afternoon cicada chirp? Maybe a sprinkler or constant hum of an oscillating fan, but not quite.

I can remember the first time I heard a cicada, well maybe I should say my first memory of cicadas.

1988 in Brazos Bend St Park
It is another world to a little girl, something out of Star Wars, ancient oak trees dripping with Spanish Moss.
Be careful a gator doesn't eat you as an afternoon snack.

Leah and I were at Campfire camp. I think I was a Bluejay.
The cicadas sang their summer song in the hot still air.

I got the chicken pox during camp and missed most of it. I don't remember chicken pox at all. I'm guessing they were itchy.
I sculpted a small, clay bowl but got sick before I could glaze it. Leah finished it for me, pink and green, I was told. But a counselor painted over it in red and blue.

Still that chorus from the trees clung deep in my memory, tucked away in a file marked Summer Songs.