The Wise Old Toad

In the grassy clearing

In the middle of the trees

The mist is like a blanket

Over all there is to see.

The rays of a golden sunrise

Catch the dewdrops on the leaves.

And if you stand there still enough

You can hear the forest breathe.

Look closely as the fog lifts

There’s someone I’d like you to meet

There’s a speckled toadstool in the grass

And a wise old toad sitting beneath.

As long as I can remember

She’s sat there every day

And hummed a gentle melody

As she watched the woods come awake.

“Come sit with me, my children,”

She calls from her seat on the stoop

“It’s cold out here till the sun comes up,

But it’s better beneath my roof.”

Watch the sparkling dewdrops fall

From beneath the toadstool top.

The brick-red roof is spotted white

And the grass is green and soft

The old toad keeps on humming

And the sparrows join along

And none can help but wonder

What she sings of in her song.

Our eyes must ask the question loud

For she answers with a smile

“I’ll tell you of the tune I hum—

Just keep me company a while.”

“I sing,” she says, “of morning mists

That melt beneath the sun.

And cloudy pillows cradling

The moon when day is done.

“I sing of sugared mountaintops

And desert valleys dry.

Lush forests ever watered from

The rains of a stormy sky.

“I sing of moss and mud and stone

The richness of our earth.

Of shady grottos, sun-warmed sand,

And roots beneath the turf.

“Of laughter and of love I sing,

Of warm hugs from a friend.

Of a peace that comes amidst the tears

That you’ll be alright in the end.

“It cannot silence all the fears

Or fix all that is bad

But still I sing my song of all

The beauty that we have.”

A note from the author:

I admit that I'm not usually drawn to cutesy, feel-good poems, and even less to rhymed poetry. While flipping through my archives, however, I came across this work from 2022, a specimen from the brief window in time where my poetry embraced a playful whimsy so unlike my usual subdued free-verse. This chapter of my creative journey emerged in response to some challenging life events, from which such idyllic daydreams served as a reprieve. Now as I finish up a rather heavy short story (which I hope to share on Vocal soon), my rediscovery of The Wise Old Toad comes as an important reminder to switch gears, take a step back—if only for a moment—and embrace tranquility. (That being said, I probably won't be writing another poem like this anytime soon, as my current creative headspace—along with that of whoever's authoring current events, it would seem—is decidedly tumultuous.)

Personal reflections aside, I wanted to briefly talk about the image that closes out the poem—a scientific illustration by none other than Beatrix Potter (1866–1943), best known as the author of The Tale of Peter Rabbit and other children's books. Much less recognized, however, is Potter's status as an accomplished mycologist, who illustrated hundreds of mushroom specimens and explored the composition of lichens through her germination experiments. Shamefully, the scientific community in Victorian England dismissed Potter's work solely on the basis of her gender, and her paper 'On the Germination of the Spores of Agaricineae' (unpublished, courtesy of insecure masculinity) was lost to time. This Women's History Month, I encourage you to learn more about Beatrix Potter (see here and here) and other women who have fought—and continue to fight—against the structural inequalities pervading STEM fields.

Having said all that, I want to thank anyone who got this far; I hope you enjoyed my little poem—and the not-so-little spiel appended to it. See you in the next story!

– TYC