Frogs

I used to like to catch them up at Ponderosa Lodge.
Tree frogs we called them; they hung out by the pool.
I would poke holes through lids from leftover
cottage cheese or liver containers and set them in
with a bit of nature to make them feel at home.

Happy with my finds I would go to sleep at night,
but soon the little amphibians, hardly one inch long,
would start their evening croaks.  So loud,
they were, that my parents would be wakened and,
by morning, they had always been freed.
Just as well, I think since the joy was in the catching.

I had not seen one in so long, and wondered,
like the small snakes I used to pick up and let
wind around my fingers, if I could no longer see them
having grown now, long ago out of childhood
or, if perhaps, they were no longer there.

So it warms my heart to have them both here.
For I will freely admit there is something about them
that I quite like, a softness because they remind me
of youth and of nature.  So, the frogs, at least,
I gently cup in my hand from the sides of our hot tub
and send them on their way.  Fearing only of a gentle smush should I accidentally sit upon one.