Frog

If the frog you struck
in the road tonight
had had anything to say
as you spun him into the brush,
it would surely not have been
an expression of surprise.
They live like that all the time —
in constant expectation
of being spun into the void
by a predator or car. 

And we
are the delusional higher beings
who find it strange that others
might accept with no surprise
the honesty of death
that usually comes suddenly
and often in the strangest of ways,
often at our hands but with no malice
at all as a simple consequence
of living as we do, moving along
blindly, carried by our large lives.

When you sit at home tonight,
think of that.  Listen
to the corking and uncorking
of our bottled confusion
whenever these things happen
and to the gigantic roar
of What Is Coming.  Think of how
the frog said nothing and accepted
his last flight, his broken body,
mouth torn so deeply
that any last croak would have been
pointless.  Then,

say what you want to say,
what you would want to say
when it is your turn.
Say what you need to now,
for it will be drowned in the roar
when it happens at last…
don’t let it die stifled behind
your slack jaw…