FROG IN ROADI taught, students struggling or sailing, depending,
through poems on computers, inspired, at least
indirectly, by the film
Henry Fool, or maybe just
the last friend they text messaged . . . But enough
of that. On the way home I took Frances Street,
and crawling--not hopping--across the
road, lit huge in my headlights, big webbed toes on it,
was an enormous frog. It was a wonderful moment.
I looked over at my empty passenger seat.
No one to verify, no one to tell. Perfect.
I love that this moment froze deep inside me.
Here I am telling about it, but who knows
what you are picturing. I know what I saw and
it was like a sign. For what you may ask?
I'm not sure. But it was enormous and rather
a ghostly pale yellow color. Yes, yes, I thought
back to
Magnolia, but I just saw the one
frog, and he (or she) seemed a hopeful soul,
crawling north, perhaps toward a hidden back yard
pond. I love that these hypothetical ponds
probably do exist. Right in the middle of South Bend,
no less. I'm sure they do. It was raining,
surely a good thing for a traveling frog. A Frog,
and maybe a Pond. A deep pond, in a small back yard,
with maybe a steel jungle gym thrown in--I
picture it sinking and sinking in the deep midnight water--
a few boulders, maybe a mailbox post, and bluegills
and one big bass. A lily pad shining a little despite
the lack of a moon, just light bulbs on a few back
porches. What would I do without these creatures
all over the place, birds and rodents etc.? Without
the idea of deep ponds in every back yard . . . I really
don't know. It'd be a real bummer . . .
