Waiting for Spring

What do the ectotherms all think

when their pond becomes a small ice rink?

How do they breathe? What do they eat? 

Do they drink or even blink?

How ultra-slow do their hearts beat

when they nearly have no body heat

as they hang in suspended animation

beneath that hard and thick ice sheet?

While skaters glide in figurations

do the fish and frogs feel strange vibrations?

Do the skaters ever think of those

dreaming beasts who, for the duration,

must feel as numb as a frozen nose?

Do the skaters, cheeks pink as a rose,

take any notice in their brains

of the life below their skates and toes?

Yet there they wait, blood in their veins

as still as the crystal cellophane.

Beneath the pond’s dense windowpane,

they feel no joy and feel no pain.

___________________________

(First published in Lucid Rhythms)