Pond

By John I. Blair

Tonight I took my wife
Out on the deck
To hear a toad sing.

Last year
The folk beyond the hedge
Had built a pond,
Stone-rimmed, deep,
At one end a spout
That sprayed six feet
Across the spattered surface.

Toads found it,
Bred toadlets by the hundred –
Squirming, hopping life.

But now divorce, abandonment,
Pond desiccation;
And no one told this toad.

Beside the crusted basin
He croaked his heart’s song,
Broadcasting to the block
His sperm availability.

And as we listened to the sound
In the steamy April air,
I with my cane,
She in her wheelchair,
We talked about our own time
Of wet fertility
And love songs in the dark,

Then laid plans
For a new pond.

©2009 John I. Blair