Rain Croak

Rain Croak


My studio window is wide open
on this quiet, mild, grey Sunday,
and I’m surrounded by the delightful
and insistent commentary of many little frogs
as I type this.
They love this weather.
Or maybe they despise it, and are whining.
I can’t tell because I haven’t signed up
for the Berlitz course in Amphibianese.

Against a hazy, shifting ceiling,
the grass and the trees are green,
and remain so throughout the winter.
Even in winter, it rarely looks bleak here
because of two things:
the perpetual verdant landscape,
and the fact that ninety percent of the time,
even our grey weather offers fluffy,
three-dimensional clouds in varying hues,
giving visual depth and movement to the sky.
It really is quite poetic.
The frogs provide the text.
I keep my window open,
to steal the music.


Alex Shapiro November 2009