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. Failing
to
pivot my cheek.
Your body dies a
minute
before your
brain. What to think
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 waning
moment
on some leap
among the lilies?
Describe its flunking
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
to unearth.
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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