Back for more toads, the following year.
It is hard to overstate the weirdness
Of this, the determinedly unexpected return.
In the usual sense people mean, the end,
Yes, is nearer, but only if we agree, and we
Do not agree, that the end was always fixed
In place, with us swimming toward it
Like the tadpoles that swim into the jar.
Sometimes, we think so. Sometimes, we
Think not. Actually, that’s not right, to say
“Fixed in place.” If we can only approach
A predetermined expiration date, then that
Would be a uniquely temporal target, not
At all like a fixed destination that sits still,
Or close enough to still, while we approach
Or recede. Today that latter scenario seems
Somehow more likely. This body shimmying
These words in gelatinous lines like strings
Of eggs, full of potential but mostly to be
Squandered, felt a lot, lot closer to the end
A year ago, and now it feels a bizarre reprieve
To be here again more or less. A toad clucks
In the hand. A proof, a sure proof, that toads
Somehow, despite the depredations, sent
Fresh generations into this year’s pond.
There is no sameness, never sameness, but
There is, for them and us, a kind of continuity.
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