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| Spring Peeper. Image source: Virginia Herpetological Society |
Spring peepers trill and whistle in between
the avenue (where drivers rush toward shops),
construction site, the woods, the putting green.
No one stops to listen to these drops
of sentience small as buttercups and shrill
as piccolos. They hide amid the stalks
that rise up from a liquid eye as still
as a spyglass pointed at the equinox,
Unblinking for eternity. The first
of April. The environs dance and ring
with notes from frogs who, though they’re unrehearsed,
belt out a song precisely tuned to spring.
These lusty soon-to-be inamoratos,
iconic crooning harbingers, will soon
be silent. You who ride inside your autos,
roll down the windows! Do not wait till June!
Martin Elster, author of There’s a Dog in the Heavens!, is also a composer and serves as percussionist for the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. His poems have appeared in such journals as Astropoetica, The Flea, The Martian Wave, The Rotary Dial, and in the anthologies Taking Turns: Sonnets from Eratosphere, The 2012 Rhysling Anthology, and New Sun Rising: Stories for Japan. Martin’s poem, “Walking With the Birds and the Bones Through Fairview Cemetery” received first prize in the Thomas Gray Anniversary Poetry Competition 2014.
