Blue wood smoke from wildfires
100 miles away choked the copse.
A morose old traveler sat down
in it beside a pond. He thought At
least the pond's still here. As was
his fear for everything. An
hallucinated frog lifted its head
from the smoke-scummed water
level, said Nothing you will ever
write, say, do, or think will change
this world, okay? The old man
had always loved amphibians,
the great adapters. He asked Should
I stop caring, then? But the frog
had absented its green mirage,
and so: alone, talking in the woods.
Even if you try to be loud, your
voice sounds less than the tiny
ratchet-grind of one grasshopper
leaping. Yes, no more caring today.
Only walking. To home. If it's still
there. If not, more walking.
hans ostrom 2021
