The Tale Of The Frogs Poem by Mark Heathcote

The tale of the frogs
It's a combobulating tale
Still hopping down one lane
Or another in the field
And under a rubber tractor tyre
How they came across a vast river
and lassoed a maple leaf to a mast
On what was a flotsam makeshift raft?
And how they laughed at the mirror image of themselves
compared to the warty toads on a far distant shore.
They laughed so loudly, a grey heron.
It swooped down and nearly ate them all.
They laughed so loud that they forgot it was winter.
And they became trapped in the ice.
And snow, till the thaw,
And they again nearly died one and all.
They laughed so loudly
That they laid their offspring eggs too late.
And the water dried out into a black bitumen lake.
And they nearly died one and all.
The tale of the frog
'Are they not too clever? '
Compared to their neighbourly, shy, efficient brother.
Who doesn't laugh but only wonders
How on earth do their tales survive and live on at all?