Last October a frog came to visit us, clinging to the slanted roof of our mailbox, just below the nightlight by our front door. We don’t think he knew that he’d chosen a house inhabited by an artist and a poet, but he was an exhibitionist, and it’s a good fit. Now it’s February, and although he occasionally leaves to visit family, Froggy’s still with us, spurring us to write and draw. In our minds we’ve thought of his fables (e.g. kissing princesses), and then of amazing and often erring swimmers in search of gold and fame (e.g. Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte), and slowly a poem emerged from the muck of my mind to squat on our lily pad, the Poet’s Notebook.
(By now we know Froggy’s a carnivorous bully, like our president, which I wasn’t going to mention, but now 17 more schoolchildren have been gunned down and our president and senator and governor have all talked about this without mentioning the word “gun,” not to mention “AR-15.” I can’t write about them now — it’s sickening and repetitive — so, to calm us down for a moment, here’s the poem.)
The Frogman
The frogman lives in water his eyes
breaking the surface below his weeded brow
The endless hours pushing through the pool
his underwater croaks like drowning cries
no turning back allowed not then or now
on choices that were made for him in school
When he was squatting on his lily pad
he heard her sing beneath the weeping tree
and knew she was the princess of his dreams
her little feet her pale translucent hand…
‘One day’ he thought ‘she’ll reach that hand to me
I’ll be the swiftest swimmer in the stream’
And so began his days of back & forth:
the muscles of his legs and shoulders swelled
his lungs puffed up the more he held his breath
He swam from east to west from south to north
until he reached the Kingdom of the Bells
and he was set on victory or death
The day he won the race and gripped the prize
the judges bowed acknowledging his skill
She stood beside the throne and saw his look
reading that princess story in his eyes
so when the King pointed she ran toward him until
she was close enough to swing
and sank the hook
Coda: The King’s Motto
In all these tales you can strive to leave the bog
and sometimes truly leave it — but to us: you’re still a frog
Peter Meinke is the poet laureate of Florida. His latest book of poems is Lucky Bones (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014), and he has published two collections of Poet’s Notebook columns: Truth and Affection: The “Poet’s Notebook” Columns from Creative Loafing (University of Tampa Press, 2013) and To Start With, Feel Fortunate (Poet’s Choice, 2017).
