Spring Peeper

Mid-March, slush
gurgles in the pond’s
throat. Tadpoles batter

through muck mulched
with sticks rotten
in slick worm-wealth,

last year’s flowers
pulped into jelly,
dead roots mixed

with earth guts.
First frogs hatch
from the lagoon’s

witching brew
and bubble chins
in omens of heat

and blooming,
their chorus
a herald of fire.

Eric Fisher Stone is a poet from Fort Worth, Texas, USA. He received his MFA in creative writing and the environment from Iowa State University. His poems have appeared in numerous journals, and his first full length poetry collection The Providence of Grass was published by Chatter House Press in 2018. He loves animals of all shapes and sizes.