Seven Thin Amphibians Flat on the Road from There to Here

1. Frog Peak in August

A few weeks ago

Now, we were leaving BC,

The cat, my baggage, and me.

“Traditional Novelties 

And Hardwood Floors” read one sign 

In the wayside woods.

We wondered where that could lead

A cat with baggage like me.

In the car, we drove on south.

In my mind, we turned aside,

Ditched our plans and risked our lives.

In my mind, if not my life,

Weird woods hid rich novelties.

Cat’s out of the bag for me.

2. Gonzaga Exists 

Gag t-shirts said on a rack

Behind the clerk’s back. The clerk

Had no idea what it meant,

Said she never thought of it.

A shopper explained the gag,

Involving a talk-show host,

A basketball tournament

And a school whose fans fought back.

Something like that. Another

Customer wanted to buy

Some lottery quick-pick tix.

“If I win, I’ll know,” he said,

With a deep, froggy laugh,

“Gonzaga indeed exists.”

3. Beware the Eyes of Marks

Someone sang a song

Involving a dozing frog.

That made it a children’s song.

Never trust an easy mark

To keep food from a lizard.

Was this an amphibian,

This lizard? Did he have wings?

Could he breathe fire? Did he look

Like a Yangtze crocodile?

Dragons are amphibious.

Dragons are known to steal things.

I’d rather be the dragon,

That hoe-cake taking lizard,

Long-tailed nanny-oh!

4. I-15 of the Grasslands from a Motel Window

“A messenger, or thief, or liar . . . a great deal to do with language.”

The cat sat at the window,

Watching trucks pass through long grass,

Chattering at a song bird

Singing, mockingly,

It seemed, at the cat,

From a branch beyond the screen.

Between rumble and chatter,

A thin, faint peeping threaded.

What was that again?

The grass was hosting crickets

And, somewhere, hiding a pond?

Was that the sound of small frogs?

No, not in dry Montana,

No messengers in summer.

5. Be a Stranger 

We each have our own sweet spot 

Between the novel 

And the familiar,

The comforting and the strange,

Where experience feels most

Richly exquisite,

And who knows whose is better?

Diversity, however,

Certainly favors

Those with a high tolerance,

Not to say love, for the strange.

I dreamed Buddha was a frog,

Floating on his lily pad,

Blissed to be reborn again.

6. The Rig

Strange binding term.

“I’d know that rig anywhere,”

Said a friend after a year.

I think of the Rig Veda.

He’s thinking of vehicles

With wheels, trucks and such.

My little car’s a tadpole 

With a cat inside, too small

To be called a rig.

I imagine it with sails.

I imagine my life rigged.

I can rig anything up

Once I get started like this.

There’s a frog in my rigging.

7. Something Other Than a Self

“where we raise the dust today / long ago was endless sea”

Never mind being a bat,

What’s it like to be a frog?

Because it needs memories,

Imagination fails us.

The hard problem is trying

To recall what we don’t have,

To recall what we are not,

To recall what we can’t be,

No such consciousness in me.

Late summer dropped its hammer

In the Utah dust.

Everywhere here used to be

Undersea. What first found shore

Was common to frogs and me.