When you’re a
poet, you never know
which strophe will be your last.
It could’ve been this—
had that stroke I’ve
always dreaded
slapped me silly.
They say you slur
your final words
when it has hit you:
see shells shesells up
by the shesore.
I practice it again &
again. Flunking to
pivot my cheek.
Your body dies a minute
before your brain. What to think
of those final sixty
seconds—and how do you
tabulate time? By the scansion
of the lines?
No one’s ever scribed
a true haiku. That
much I know. If I had
an instant left, I wouldn’t
say a peep about a
frog. Seriously—
you’re gonna squander
that final moment
on some leap among the lilies?
Describe its failing plop?
Then you wonder why
they never speak of Bashō
anymore. Exhaling his
closing breath, carbon
more important than a
tercet. The ripple on
the pond
is
the pond.
My child
soaks her feet
among the tadpoles.
Doesn’t wince in
mud & slime.
Sees a wart as
as a bulge of beauty.
She has nothing
left to learn.
Andreas Gripp
July 5, 2026
Photo: Instants / Getty Images
Interesting to note, I just finished writing a poem with the title, "the bullfrog opines on the pond," wherein I mention both pollywogs and tadpoles. During my last walk by Silver Lake I was struck dumb by the single croak of a bullfrog. My poem ends "hear me primordial things/hear me original sound/hear me children of slime/and algae and the greatness of green ooze/ I am this noise/ I am bullfrog/ and 'this' is more than my opinion".
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this, John. Hope to read that entire poem. Cheers.
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