The Last Frog of Summer

By Steven Wade Veatch

I. Wind

By the pond, I listened to the tumult of the wind 
and tried to distinguish each sound that swirled 
through the spruce and tamarack trees. 
It sounded like twisted whispers through a hollowed-out log. 
Breezes made the branches lash and tremble. 
The animated leaves fluttered and danced in the wind. 
The air charged with the fresh scent of ozone after a rain—
nature’s purifying incense. The drag of the wind 
made slight waves over the open pond.

II. Pond

The pond is an expression of the intersection 
of the water table and the landscape. Slabs of sandstone
border the pond. One slab reveals where ancient waves 
once pounded the beach with conviction—leaving ripple marks 
in the sand, now lithified. Green leafy blades of wild iris reach skyward 
while tips of emerald stalks are covered with crowns of purple blossoms.
Little white flowers rise like periscopes.  Cushy, green mounds of moss 
and wetland plants soak up the land’s stress. 
They filter and purify the water and fill the wells. 
Here is the heart of an active ecosystem that provides 
a certain wisdom as the circle of life plays out.

III. Frog

A Northern Green Frog settles in on a wet rock 
and lingers after a light rain has ended.  
An oakleaf fell to the ground near the frog, 
and on the leaf’s surface beads of rainwater 
scatter sunlight like an opal. 

IV. Brevity

Although the transitory nature of the water adds 
Life in the elemental, living in the elemental, 
to the mystique of the moment, I am moved 
from my comfort zone by the bitter winds of my own brief time
as I hand over another day—moving closer to the end, 
just like the water beads as they give up another molecule 
with each passing moment, until they slowly evaporate 
into oblivion. What is there after that moment comes? 
Will it be as quiet as the steep silence of the moon, 
or will it be darkness as unrevealing as the night?