“A southerly view of Mt. Abraham. It was snow during the dawn hours, for those awake to see it. Melted off by late afternoon, stubbornly not gone from the shaded north side of the house. I walk around the yard, poking things with a stick, watching out for the amphibian tribe with its tadpoles. I’d like them to find their own escape routes, migrating downhill in favor of wet ditches. I hope they can liberate themselves before I fill in the pond. I don’t like disrupting their spring commerce and yet here I sit next to their pool, informing them, maybe pleading a bit, that they should move. One frog seems willing to broker with me, either dead or playing dead until I grab him by the gills. Gently, marveling at gills. I’m sure we’ve come to an agreement, though maybe he doesn’t like it at first. The real culprit is excessive water on the eastern slope. Maybe it’s not my place to argue with aquatic beings, certainly it’s not their fault they are so plentiful here, but I can place a firm foot into the muck. Thinking twice before I banish any creature from its biome. but not above invoking a little pressure, a la “the divine right of kings”. Something else is coming in. You’ll have free rein below the barn, willows to hide under, rivulets to bathe in, unencumbered. Ah, my frogs. How well we sing: together, apart, dancing in the dark. Nothing much will ever divide us. A log, a stump, a cold day in May. Clumps of saturated marsh marigolds, echoing the sun. A sacred storm. The bowl of wind, gathering speed before it accelerates, deafening our tiny ears. The tree canopy trying heroically to stem its destruction. If I would have known then, what I know now, I would have bunkered down before it was too late. I would have trusted moss, and the soft new growth of pines. My bed would be anchored, with the mighty power of the love of bees. Humming, ecstatic, blessed by my own, supple innocence. Open, beautiful, invited by nothing to be a part of everything. That’s where we all were, in that life we left at the crossroads. Like Robert Johnson, making a deal with the devil. Some handsome, arrogant stranger you met at a party. The one who told you, your stars were aligned. The chopping block, on which he laid his axe. So that you would come close, and feed from his hand.”
