Wood Frog Mother by Sara Wright

Dead Cedar
Week after week
heat, wind, sun,
shrinks vernal pools.
 Ditches are dry.
Denizens
of wet forest,
masked gold leaves,
seek shallow depressions
 fed by Spring.

One night the
heat wave breaks
I smell rain,
hear hoarse croaks.
I stand there
swallowing sound
inhaling fragrant air
Lamenting absence –
so many voices stolen
by drought. 

At dawn
two frogs persevered,
laid a cluster
of eggs –
clasping
each other
in prayer.

A week later
stray snowflakes
pressure earth,
forcing
  pale green.
A cluster
of bloodroot spears
 splits ground.

I dream
my Voice is
Drowning
in a pail
of jellied eggs.

A dead cedar
rots nearby.

Dedicated to my mother on her death day – a woman who dismissed her daughter’s voice, stripping away authentic feeling in the process. It is no wonder I had no access to my body.

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Sara is a naturalist, ethologist (a person who studies animals in their natural habitats) (former) Jungian Pattern Analyst, and a writer. She publishes her work regularly in a number of different venues and is presently living in Maine.