Plague of Frogs

                                                                      by Paul David Adkins



                                                                 I loved to hike the desert

                                                                 monsoon evenings.

                                                                 A week after rains ended

                                                                 the last puddles shrank

                                                                 to inch-deep sheets

 

                                                                full of writhing tadpoles. 

                                                                Only I

                                                                witnessed their dying --

                                                                and roadrunners

                                                                waiting to snap them

                                                                one by one

                                                                from mud. 

 

                                                                Right then I wanted the world

                                                                covered in frogs

                                                                -- these frogs --

                                                                that would not live the night,

                                                                that nature birthed

                                                                to fill the beaks of birds.

 

                                                                I pulled my water, poured --

                                                                three gallons on the dying --

                                                                spooked sparrows into flight,

                                                                turned home. 

 

                                                                Their croaks might yet

                                                                fill the desert night

                                                                like flowers which

                                                                in their own swift season

                                                                soften stones

                                                               and soothe the cracking earth.