Toad Poem - La Rana (The Toad)

Here's an Ode originally posted on Squaretoad on October 12, 2005 by Maria Tabor...

                                                La Rana (The Toad)

    I sit on a boulder in the Trinity River and make peace with my fear of the bear. I will leave it here with the tadpoles around my ankles, speckled stones, tall grass and the toad's eyes just above the surface.        

 

 
    I will try to sit in stillness like that toad and watch water rush over fallen firs, duck my head to avoid a swallowtail flying into me. One eye is on a garter snake swimming S's and the other on a lizard beneath the coolness of a redwood shadow.

    There are greater fears out there, a parent's death, a The river deafens all sounds save the truth of rapids, the croak of a toad, the splash of a foot.