FROG AUTUMN

Summer grows old, cold-blooded mother.

The insects are scant, skinny.

In these palustral homes we only

Croak and wither.

Mornings dissipate in somnolence.

The sun brightens tardily

Among the pithless reeds. Flies fail us.

The fen sickens.

Frost drops even the spider. Clearly

The genius of plenitude

Houses himself elsewhere. Our folk thin

Lamentably.