Listen to a reading of these pieces by the author:
[haiku url=”https://www.kenyonreview.org/wp-content/uploads/joseph-8-1-12.mp3″ title=”Death of a Frog; You, Without Shoes”]
Death of a Frog
—Philautus Maia, first and only specimen ever to be found, circa 1860, in Sri Lanka
I. Maya: Illusion
And who were your ancestors,
your glossy little children, lone
ghost of the emerald
swamp? Was your landscape
just a projection of some heat-oppressed
brain? Dead, you tell us
you existed. A museum’s
your mausoleum now. It seems
Maia slept as you were taken,
and the furrow in the field
did not swallow you like it did Sita. But
here you are—a brown bauble
captive under glass. Habeas
Corpus. Plucked from
a rain-heavy lotus leaf
(or was it from an algae-slathered
river?) by the hands
of your discoverer. Left your webbed
footprint in the mud we claim
as ours. And, making up
stories as we go, we gather
our basketfuls of Adams and Eves, fallen
Lucifers, snakes and whales; but you
fell somewhere by the side
of that old road. The sun touched you
once in that forest. You glowed,
then you were gone.
II. Maya: Compassion
Hard to tell what color your eyes
were. Your skin tone under the true sun?
Shriveled water-loving-
land-living-issue of mudskippers,
carcass of lost knowledge, O maya!
This ache—is it just illusion?
Weep for the passing of birds
and beasts! Even St. Francis
intervened for you. See, he wipes
his eyes with his sleeve. And after,
did St. Peter welcome you? Or like
our colonist fathers measured,
filed you away? You were the last
of your line. Rest now. My fingers
anoint you with moisture. My prayers
ravel around you in ether. Not yet
ashes, not yet dust,
we preserve you. In this life,
we resurrect you. Through
your descendants still unborn,
still unrisen from the wet lands.
Holy amphibian,
child of earth and water,
when will you come again?
You, Without Shoes
we imagine you with a pen between your teeth
in an electric city
how you escaped the mud
its fierce love of flesh and bone
child, barefoot in the mud you walked
savored the squelching
deep now
the suck of soil around your ankles
your feet have sunk
how do you know
how to lift up
escape the pull of it
our child
gone away
you once were lustrous with rain
your feet like petals
trail of paisley print behind you
we grasped it in our hands
we could not let go
each foot searches
like a prayer before
it takes your weight
shoeless you played
how could we imagine you
all grown up
you, a woman with dreams held like a rose in her teeth
who never let the heels of our history
wear her down
we are old, we have not moved, we stay the same
we cannot understand
distance
we, the ones left behind
who fall
earth calls us daily
but you
you just shake us from your hair
shake the water from your feet
mud invisible
lift off
never look back
