Frog Prince
Deep in roadside ditches the unseen frogs
go silent any morning we walk by,
as if the small spigots of those throats were
twisting closed on all the dark oil of their croaking.
It’s like that sudden quiet upon entering a room
full of people we think we know, currents
of speech running dry as some enchanted stream.
Or like certain classes I’ve taught over the years,
students as if spellbound, going mute in unison
no matter how I might have come in smiling,
nodding, an old toad myself they must’ve thought,
squat and soft-necked, a little warty,
though if the stories could be believed
a prince of knowledge once upon a time.
• • •
James Scruton has two full-length collections and five chapbooks of poems. His work has also been published in Poetry, North American Review, Poet Lore, The Florida Review, and many other publications over the past thirty-five years.