Frogs Around the Pond

Posted on February 14, 2006 in Biomes Creatures Weather

I heard the frogs croaking the other night, their chirps sparking the silence. People walked in their short shorts, thinking of relatives walking knee deep in the northeastern blizzard and how wrong this was for February. Children doing their homework gazed out the window to watch the summer night yet denied to them. Fathers and mothers balancing checkbooks wondered if some premature deduction had been made from the great book of accounts. February warmth must be compensated by rain in another season. How perverse nature would become in this place where plants are wont to die by July*: no seeds would be on hand to drink the showers. The wild oats would sop up it all. The countryside would smell like an old, wet broom.

Neither prayer nor sheer will against the Universe changes the round of empty skies. If this existence is entirely my creation, then I have done a bad job of it.

If I have scraped and formed the Universe** using what powers of mind that I have, I like the frogs. They represent some of my best work.

*There is even a tree, the California buckeye, which drops its leaves during the torrid months.

** To the literal minded: This is nothing more than a poetic device. You must have been sleeping during high school English or working on your math homework.