Cicadas

Cicadas

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Gray rainbows in the nighttime irrigation.
Immediately forgotten.
Then I hear a child carry a tune in a whisper.

I was dashing through those ashen rainbows
immediately forgotten.
You could truncate butterfly to butte

and still get migration and a cumin route.
But not camel.
Not emu. Not Tuareg. Not a Russian garlic

dome like painted clove on steppe nor geodesic
ostrich egg.
Totally forgotten, til the child’s moonbow tune

whispered in what wagon, rickshaw, landau
rattled me to a carrefour.
I couldn’t tell the autumn from the drought,

crescent over Quonset hut, or put language
to the pulp that made me ill.
Inside the mouth of the water-flow monitors,

goblin goblin—robin. New World cicadas
that chant in parabolas.
A new address, a dryness, they stop. Focal chill.

We cannot back down

We now confront a second Trump presidency.

There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.

Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.

Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.

The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

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Onwards,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

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