Molly Frederick has been writing (and revising) lyric poems about the natural world for more than 50 years. After a career in medical publishing she appreciates having more time to write. She has 2 grown children and has lived in northern New Jersey with her husband for the last 34 years. Approximately 300 of her lyric poems are collected in 6 books. Molly believes a poem is a flash of awareness that arrives unbidden, already in existence, but requiring at least 50 drafts to be realized with clarity and precision. Her work has appeared in POEM Magazine and Hyacinths and Biscuits. This is a love poem. I hope you fall in love with it the same way I did when I first heard Molly read it.
Confidence
By Molly Frederick
There he reclines, precisely
where he should not,
on one of the main roads
running
through town.
A frog.
One gentle, time-blessed
frog.
All alone this summer night,
he rests greenly,
exactly where he is,
smiling
with knowing
thin-stretched lips
because tomorrow
is a long way off.
From my lofty height, I
reach down
to stroke him.
He smiles deeper still,
from the moist recesses
of his mind, into mine.
For a moment, we breathe
as one before I move on.
What happened to him
someone knows,
though he may not.
I only know that when I
saw him last,
he was holding on
in rapture to the rind
of this hallowed,
round-and-meloned, great
and beautiful
sun-hugging earth,
Right where he was, he held
the world carefully
on tiny, plump fingertips.
Upside down.
I didn’t want this to end. Turn him right side up.
Lovely!
Beautiful and fresh.