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| Chia-Chi Yu |
Chorus
That rain-strewn night in the woods, the chorus, chorus
Of the green tree frogs called us
And let us by flashlight far from our firelight
Over and down a logging road to the marsh,
And they kept singing as green as the half-frozen
Hemlock branches we brushed slowly among,
As high and thin as the air we tried to hold
As breath among mountains, as thin
And clear as the ice our boots were breaking
Gently, each step a pale-green croaking
Of its own, as we came nearer and nearer where
They had risen out of cold graves to the cold
At the brittle edge of winter broken toward spring
To make their music over a cold spawning,
To choir all night after night, telling each other
We lived at the edge of summer, we live
Here again and again. As we came closer,
The singing ended, suddenly went silent
At a single pulsing throatbeat. Nothing but wind
And sleet made any sound over the marsh.
We turned our light away. We waited longer
And longer in darkness, shivering like the reeds
Beyond us, chilled as the film of ice at our feet,
Forgetting all words, and the first voice began
Again, far off, and slowly the green others
Nearby began their hesitant answers, their answers
Louder and clearer chorused around us
As if we belonged there, as if we belonged to them.
David Wagoner
Growing up, spring evenings were full of frog noise from the pond.
I wish I could hear it now.
