Saturday, June 9, 2012

MORGAN'S STORY: A POEM



          I am a frog. I live in a well.

          It's damp down here, but that's all right.


          My skin's built for it. So are my organs.

          When I go croak I'm a tongue in a bell,


          and when I dive, my splashes ignite

          a long series of echoes. But more than


          anything else oh I love to expel

          a deep deep blast of joy and excite


          the still air with my name, with, "Morgan,

          Morgan," again and again, and I yell


          it so loud the frogs above me light

          up their voices, "Morgan, Morgan."


          After a minute it sounds like a spell.

          And when I stop it's dark. The night


          brings bugs and I hunt them with my snorkle

          eyeballs alert for their eyes. For a cell


          my walls are paradise despite

          the cold, staring look in the morning,


          when right at first it gives me a hell

          of a fright. It's the way the light


          reflects off the pool, black as a gorgon's

          eye, and still. It will dwell


          on empty space as a pupil might,

          fixed on a white spot. I say, "Morgan,


          wells are not for frogs!"  I tell

          myself it isn't worth the fright


          to hide wedged in my niche every morning.

          It passes. By noon I can smell

    
          the yellow sun. The walls turn white.

          My green skin is an emerald pouring


          facets of color from every cell.

          I'm blazing: I'm the source of light,


          a frog crazy with joy, I'm Morgan


*


---by TJ Worthington, c 1973
                                 
     






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