WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
Advice: A Book of Poems cover

Advice: A Book of Poems

Chapter 6: ADVICE TO A HORNÈD TOAD
Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

About This Book

A series of short lyric pieces speaks directly to plants, animals, objects, streets and people, offering counsel, observation and ironic tenderness through apostrophic address. Urban and industrial vignettes sit beside pastoral and fable-like poems, with occasional dialogues and parable structures that alternate between sardonic humor and elegiac calm. Recurrent contrasts between motion and stillness highlight scenes of labor, performance and fleeting beauty, while a personal, conversational tone links meditative portraits and sharp urban sketches to broader reflections on perception, loss and small, uncanny moments.

ADVICE TO A HORNÈD TOAD

Hornèd Toad of cloven brown,
Rock souls have dwindled to your eyes
And thrown a splintered end upon your blood.
Night and day have vanished
To you, who squat and watch
Years loosen one sand grain until
Its fall becomes your moment.
Tall things plunge over you,
Slashing their dreams with motion
That holds the death of all they seek,
But you, to whom fierce winds are ripples,
Do not move lest you lose the taste of stillness.
Hornèd Toad of cloven brown,
Never hop from your grey rock crevice
Mute with interwoven beginnings and ends.
The fluid lies of motion
Leave no remembrance behind.