Frog Songs

In Odin’s mailbox this first day of February 1, 2023

Two remarkable poets were born on this date. Galway Kinnell in the 1927 of Providence, Rhode Island. He died in 2014. Kinnell was another influencer of Yers Trooley's turn toward the poet's life. And, Langston Hughes was born on today's date in the 1902 world of Joplin, Missouri.

First Song – Galway Kinnell

Then it was dusk in Illinois, the small boy
After an afternoon of carting dung
Hung on the rail fence, a sapped thing
Weary to crying. Dark was growing tall
And he began to hear the pond frogs all
Calling on his ear with what seemed their joy.

Soon their sound was pleasant for the boy
Listening in the smoky dusk and the nightfall
Of Illinois, and from the fields two small
Boys came bearing cornstalk violins
And they rubbed the cornstalk bows with resins
And the three sat there scraping of their joy.

It was now fine music the frogs and the boys
Did in the towering Illinois twilight make
And into dark in spite of a shoulder's ache
A boy's hunched body loved out of a stalk
The first song of his happiness, and the song woke
His heart to the darkness and into the sadness of joy.