Spring frogs/frog poetry

World Poetry Day showed frogs back in the big garden. Two years ago we had four. Last year, six. Today, ten. Spawn already collecting in the weed. Every time it happens, it's a new thing. Without frogs, as without bees, the world falls apart. Root for them while you can.

Click picture for frog facts.

Small Frogs Killed on the Highway

James Arlington Wright - Still

I would leap too Into the light, If I had the chance. It is everything, the wet green stalk of the field On the other side of the road. They crouch there, too, faltering in terror And take strange wing. Many Of the dead never moved, but many Of the dead are alive forever in the split second Auto headlights more sudden Than their drivers know. The drivers burrow backward into dank pools Where nothing begets Nothing. Across the road, tadpoles are dancing On the quarter thumbnail Of the moon. They can't see, Not yet.

Norman MacCaig - Frogs

Frogs sit more solid than anything sits. In mid-leap they are parachutists falling in a free fall. They die on roads with arms across their chests and heads high.

I love frogs that sit like Buddha, that fall without parachutes, that die like Italian tenors.

Above all, I love them because, pursued in water, they never panic so much that they fail to make stylish triangles with their ballet dancer's legs.