The RetroLounge Daily Poem Thread (Sat 2/18/06)

[RetroLounge]

Small Frogs Killed On The Highway

Still,
I would leap too
Into the light,
If I had the chance.
It is everything, the wet green stalk of the field
On the other side of the road.
They crouch there, too, faltering in terror
And take strange wing. Many
Of the dead never moved, but many
Of the dead are alive forever in the split second
Auto headlights more sudden
Than their drivers know.
The drivers burrow backward into dank pools
Where nothing begets
Nothing.

Across the road, tadpoles are dancing
On the quarter thumbnail
Of the moon. They can't see,
Not yet.

James Wright

**********************

RL

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[yvr girl]

1. This poem reminds me of Kauai

The roads are littered with frog corpses, flattened and dried. On some of them, you can almost see the, "Oh, shit!" look in their eyes.

[miss_american_pie]

2. And Gerald Stern for you

Behaving Like A Jew

When I got there the dead opossum looked like
an enormous baby sleeping on the road.
It took me only a few seconds – just
seeing him there – with the hole in his back
and the wind blowing through his hair
to get back again into my animal sorrow.
I am sick of the country, the bloodstained
bumpers, the stiff hairs sticking out of the grilles,
the slimy highways, the heavy birds
refusing to move;
I am sick of the spirit of Lindbergh over everything,
that joy in death, that philosophical
understanding of carnage, that
concentration on the species.
--- I am going to be unappeased at the opossum’s death.
I am going to behave like a Jew
and touch his face, and stare into his eyes,
and pull him off the road.
I am not going to stand in a wet ditch

with the Toyotas and the Chevies passing over me
at sixty miles an hour
and praise the beauty and the balance
and lose myself in the immortal lifestream
when my hands are still a little shaky
from his stiffness and his bulk
and my eyes are still weak and misty
from his round belly and his curved fingers
and his black whiskers and his little dancing feet

[RetroLounge]

3. Wow, that is nice...

thanks for sharing that...

RL

[CaliforniaPeggy]

4. My dear RetroLounge....

How well this poem describes the forces which pull us......

Beautiful!

I thank you so much, every day.......


:loveya: :hug:

[RetroLounge]

7. Glad to see you posting on here everyday too...

Look forward to it...

RL

[xchrom]

5. the forces of life that pull us are irrepressible.

''Across the road, tadpoles are dancing
On the quarter thumbnail
Of the moon. They can't see,
Not yet.''

[RetroLounge]

6. This describes me still...

Still,
I would leap too
Into the light,
If I had the chance.

RL

[RetroLounge]

8. Evening kick

:kick:

RL

[threehensandacow]

9. better to have leaped

and lost than never to have leaped at all?

[RetroLounge]

12. Something like that...

Happy 100 posts!

:loveya:

RL

[SeattleGirl]

10. Taking chances, even in the face of risk or danger

Is that not part of life? :hug:

[RetroLounge]

11. Yes, it is...

:hi:

:hug:

RL