Author Archives: Roman

Frog Crèche with the Swirl
  Cruel Snaker, Snacker on Peat,
  Splayer of Mosquitos and the Ocean's Water Freshener;
  Tawny, husky, sprawling,
  City of Sunken Boulders:

They tell me you are sickly and I believe them, for I have
  smelled your tainted liquor over the torrents drowning the
  farmhouses.
And they tell me your music trickles and I answer: Yes it is 
  true I have heard the crickets shrill and winter and spring free shrill again.
And they tell me you are profligate and my reply is: On the 
  puddles of toads and tadpoles I have seen eggs go
  to waste.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who
  leer at this unowned swamp, and I give them the leer and
  say to them:
Come and show me another bog with weighted reeds waving so
  proud to be green and tan and brown and lithe.
Flinging organic curses amid the insects rain-hatched in dirt,
  here is a deep bold pool set vivid against the asphalt hard
  cities;
Calm as a cat with tongue lapping milk, innocent as a
  vole pitted against the otter,
 Flowerheaded,
 Groveling,
 Mediating,
 Emerging,
 Drying, wetting, freezing,
Under the clouds, pollen all over mouth, laughing with
  brown trees,
Under the great lightness of nihil laughing as a young
  squirrel laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant vulture laughs who has never
  missed a carcass,
Wagging and laughing that under roots are the capillaries, and 
   under grasses the heart of the land,
               Laughing!
Laughing the tawny, husky, sprawling laughter of Immanence,
  naked, porous, proud to be Frog Crèche, Cruel
  Snaker, Snacker on Peat, Splayer of Mosquitos and
  Water Freshener to the Ocean.

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Thank you to Carl Sandburg for Chicago.