Killing A Frog


Killing a frog 
is easier than you think,
especially a baby one that can't hop
and doesn't blink,

picking gently among the wetted rocks
 
not to swim
to drink, perhaps to play
within the confines of a shallow brook, 
green 
with curiosity but nothing like fear
today.

A stone thrown here,
a stone thrown there
and still the baby one doesn't jump,
doesn’t scare, though he does
stare ahead (in growing dread?) until

finally a direct hit shatters his head.
  
No scaring needed now, 
no caring no how, just 
staring into emptiness as 
the baby one dies, 
is dead.

Another hit, and now his baby brain lies,
a pale green wafer, on the stone terrain.

I was there. I wanted to be.
I was not the only one.

But all I did was watch the killing done, though
I may have thrown a tiny little pebble, just one.

But I know I never hit him, I didn't, I swear
(as if anything killed would care).

If anyone older had happened upon us then,
they wouldn't have approved, but they wouldn't
have made a fuss; or maybe, to sound
serious, just a bit of 
grown-up noise.

For, after all,
we were only 
being boys.
            
The thing is, 
of distance, age and time,
none for long has been my friend, none
has passed over the memory of this crime 
to away and gone 
to a merciful end. Never

ever for the unwitting stranger
to mercy, 
to danger, to courage,
to caring, who couldn’t stop 
a simple horror, but won’t 

stop staring

at the baby one 
trying no longer to be a frog,
dying
at the unfeeling fingers of 
growing children, though
graced with the empty love
of Almighty God, from Whom 
all blessings, brooks
and dead frogs flow.



-originally published in the Plum Ruby Review