The Pond

The Pond

The frogs sing, come warm evenings, March or April, as rains replenish the cypress pond. It lies beyond the green curve of the neighbors' field, south-east and south-east again.

They grow cotton one year, peanuts the next, though once they threw us a curve, planting cotton two years in a row.

Ah, well, cotton is always planted in a row.

But the field — it slopes down to the pond, to the cypress, the willows and gum, and we're glad to have the music, when frogs sing, come the warm evenings. In the spring, when we can sit on the porch and leave windows open to the night, we listen.

Stephen Brooke ©2011

appeared in the “Retellings” collection