41. The Dialogue of the Frogs

41. The Dialogue of the Frogs

The First Frog:

By the river I sat amid bones

In the sky, the red-painted vulture circled

I wept to see the words its body wrote

The bones were as old as the river

Old as water, old as the movement

Of my hand into yours

I think that I will never read those words again

The Second Frog:

By the river I drank cool water

It comes from the mountains, my mother said

The mountains are silent,

But the water gurgles,

Crying for their attention

My mother died; I saw her wither in the sun

Her dying was short; her death was long

I said no word

The red-painted vulture wrote in silence

The only sound was the sound of flies

The Third Frog:

By the river I sat among every kind of reed

The papyrus spread its fan; the bulrush darkened

The thatch-reed prickled my skin like the sun

I know no other kinds of reed

The Fourth Frog:

By the river I sat and thought

The sand is soft and silver here, I thought;

The sun is warm, the river cool, I thought;

The air is fresh and blue, I thought;

The flies are crunchy and spill their juice

How beautiful I am become by the river

The First Frog:

I remember bone

The Second Frog:

I remember water

The Third Frog:

I remember reeds

The Fourth Frog:

I remember flies

The Fifth Frog:

Do you know how my skin stretches when I am hungry?

My stomach grows and grows

To turn inside out until it holds the world

I am reminded of how many bones I have

The delicate framework beneath my flesh

I am a soft and fragile thing, but I will eat the world

The Sixth Frog:

Do you know how I sing when I want love?

The body is water that kindles fire

A hunger sating itself with hunger

See my throat expand, fine and thin as an egg's rind

An embryo of sound inside

In the still pools of the river we sang, one to another

And gripped and kneaded and fought,

Soft against soft, hard against hard

The fighting a part of the loving

The drumbeat of the song

The Seventh Frog:

Do you know how I am silent when I spawn?

Egg upon egg, a great achievement

If I loved each one, my heart would break

The act is the meaning; the water rises

Displaced by my brood; this is how I alter the world

What is there to say, except the soft stretching

As my body empties itself, and the gentle splash

As my limbs push egg upon egg into the world?

The Eighth Frog:

Do you know how I twitch when I die?

I die of so many things. There is the bird,

There is the snake, there is the accident of fate,

The parasite, the flashing blade

The life in me leaps as it leaves;

I watch my nerveless feet scrabble against stone

Disturbing the stones of the river

Bright is the water, bright is the blood

Dark is the red-painted vulture

The Fifth Frog:

I remember hunger

The Sixth Frog:

I remember love

The Seventh Frog:

I remember spawning

The Eighth Frog:

I remember death

All:

The river, O river

Mother, cradle, grave

Right hand of the sun

Left hand of the moon

The river of bones,

Mother of bones,

Devourer of bones

Lifeblood, we sing

Amid your green hair