Spring broke out one morning
sending a tremor through the marsh,
waking the dreaming frogs
cranking their bodies slow ice after ice.
The willows smell like licorice
and clouds drift along the foothills like smoke;
black strings of ravens fly along the mountains,
over ponds and bogs
where frogs will spawn in soft ringed shallows
waiting out life in a gelatinous cloudburst of eggs on windy water.
Fox traipses around the pond sniffing the perfume of popping buds
the air rhythmic with the sound of peepers.
She listens to their floating chorus and the creaking rounding of the earth,
the water and mud play an ancient tune
the singing ooze of primeval birth.