Frog words and toad tales

Frog words and toad tales

The Telling Toads project

Watch a toad wake to wariness, a slow unfolding of limbs and thoughts, the blink of a golden eye. The gulp of a soft throat. The careful positioning of a small foot. Then the sharpness of hunger, a movement to draw that golden eye, a heavy body leans forward. Tongue strike and recoil and the an has gone

But the words remain…TellingToads is back to gather new poems and stories celebrating amphibians and reptiles. A few of our earlier contributions follow. Why not have a look at the notes about what we are looking for and unleash your inner frogliness across a page or screen…..

c/o Judith Bullivant

Walking a long road

Gordon MacLellan

Toadman.

Todman.

Toad Whisperer.

Frayed boots on a hard road,

Fingerless gloves and a long coat,

Black hat shades darker eyes.

A measured step, 

An ageless amphibian patience,

And a bag of toadbones in his pocket,

The Toadman will tell

The secrets you hid,

The treasure you lost,

The love you hunger for.

He’ll tell, he’ll always tell,

Your tale to the toads.

But bribe him well,

Pay him with coin,

With food,

With favours,

Never to let the frogs know.

Friend Frog

Tessa Strickland

 

c/o Jane Millum

Friend Frog, your eyes are water jewels.

   Looking at you, I see orbs

of liquid mineral looking back.

You are as inscrutable as a Buddha,

    and I wonder, what is it that you see

gazing out of your frog world

at this bulky, shadowed being-thing

    which has arms and legs, like you,

a heart, like you, but a breathing apparatus

that can no longer live amphibiously,

    a body that can no longer leap

between river and hill.

Friend Frog, you who can

    hear the earth talk, who can sense

the shifting tremors of the underworld

with your small, exquisite body,

    you who can see and hear and interpret

the elements in ways that are lost to me,

Forgive me, Friend Frog,

   for the way I trample through your domain

in heavy boots.

c/o Shawn Walters

Ode to a toad

John Roff

O waddling lump of cold porridge,

bulging your way across the lawn like
you own it…

Why do you insist on invading my
barefoot garden privacy with that
lazy excuse of a hop?

At least you could have had the delicacy of
a smooth-skinned reed frog,
piping on the evening breeze like a water flute;
or even the swift, purposed elegance of
those green river frogs with the stripe down their backs.

But instead I must contend with amphibian arrogance,
wrapped in a slack skin of warts,
and entirely unsmiling.

I even found a toad in one of my gardening shoes once,
probably plotting the downfall of the human race;

I cannot stand them –

They

Freak

Me

Out.

(title bar photo is from Maria van Daalen. Thanks, Maria!)