When I put a CD in my Mac, I hear it getting read, and then a small silver circle shows up on the desktop. If I click on that, I can see what files are on the CD -- if they are music files I can listen to them in iTunes, if they are graphic files I can view them with Preview, etc.
Sometimes when my desktop is really cluttered, it's hard to find the icon for the CD
In that case, I click the eject button on my keyboard, and then when I put it in again, I watch the screen really closely for movement to see where it pops up.
Hope that helps!