festoon

This spring, billions of cicadas across the eastern half of the U.S. will emerge from their multiyear slumber to festoon the trees and sing their loud songs.

Found materials, including street signage rulers, ornithology illustrations and children’s drawings, festoon the canvas, mingling with hurried chalk annotations and prays of gestural brushwork resembling graffiti.

A UK-style red telephone booth sits on one corner, Norwegian flags festoon posts and staircases and a “Velkommen til Poulsbo!” mural and monstrous Viking invite day-trippers and weekend stays.

On the day after Thanksgiving, while the Bidens were still in Nantucket, the teams descended upon the White House, working through the weekend to festoon the halls with hand-pinned gumdrops, shape chicken wire into bough-covered arches, install crystal-studded nutcrackers on mantels, and hang a papier-mâché set of reindeer that soar above the Cross Hall and Grand Foyer.

Death and harrowing scenes of misery festoon these slow-motion tragedies.