Toads are smarter than frogs. Like all of us who are not good-
looking they have to rely on their wits. A woman around the
beginning of the last century who was in love with frogs wrote
a wonderful book on frogs and toads. In it she says if you place
a frog and a toad on a table they will both hop. The toad will
stop just at the table’s edge, but the frog with its smooth skin
and pretty eyes will leap with all its beauty out into nothing-
ness. I tried it out on my kitchen table and it is true. That may
explain why toads live twice as long as frogs. Frogs are better at
romance though. A pair of spring peepers were once observed
whispering sweet nothings for thirty-four hours. Not by me.
The toad and I have not moved.
~Tom Hennen  “Plains Spadefoot Toad”

I am too much like a toad.

Plain, bumpy, staid,
cautious, contemplative,
tending to plop or splat
rather than risk
a graceful, carefree
leap into nothingness.

Someone has to hold down the swamp,
while peering over the edge of the abyss,
belching out an occasional thoughtful croak
while thousands of dainty peepers sing their hearts out
like so many sleighbells jingling gaily
throughout the endless, late winter night.

We all sing together…

Poets who know no better rhapsodize about the peace of nature, but a well-populated marsh is a cacophony.
~Bern Keating