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| Nikita Charushin |
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Hearing the Frogs
Hearing the frogs in a green marsh
Breaks through the heart's dry twigs, making
A sudden bud upon the harsh
Mind's thorn, pointed and sweet - shaking
Within. Hearing the frogs is like
A fiddle-bow across the heart -
At first so light it leaves no pain,
Until the music strikes a part
Long still, that now must live again.
Frances Ripley Mastin
This is nostalgia all over. I went home not long ago, near to where I grew up, and happened to be outside at dusk when this sound ambushed me. The frogs! It's embarrassing, but I nearly cried. The sound of every spring in my childhood. The sound of greenness, newness, mysterious out-of-the-falling-darkness. Some sounds go right through you, like a shock. (I know I repeat myself, I know I often remark how true a poem feels, well, get ready, here I go again.) Isn't that so true how music, or sound, can awaken something, call something to life that we had forgotten for years?
