NaPoWriMo #3: Amphibian Night Commute

When the rain falls on the marsh,
it falls with the force of avalanches.

A frog out of water,
out in the torrential downpour,
commuting to the lake of flies
where pond-skates dance in chaos.

Her spawn clings to the lilies,
beer-frothing into being.
Limbs sprouting like roses
waiting to overflow.

The mother frog hops across tarmac,
glistening skin in the streetlight,
basking in the gift of amphibian life
as rain hammers the road.

She hops across front lawns
into the undergrowth of fronds.
Cats notwithstanding
she reaches the pond before dawn.

Wildfowl

On a Wednesday, bleak and drizzly,
the pond surface hardly sizzly,
ducks dabble and watch as the world
goes by with the speed of a snail.

Not a single thing disturbs them,
yet the dawn of night rouses them
to prepare for the evening's rave,
for the evening's great pond rave,
a rave all the wildfowl crave.

They line the waters in their droves,
led by the Mute Swan Club of Stow,
with geese, grebes and moorhens galore.
A moulting mallard emerges from reeds

to begin his set intended to please
birds from Cardiff to Tennessee
who gather near the shallow shore
to hear what tunes the duck has in store,
sounds not heard on the pond before.

The mixer rises from the depths
where the sticklebacks would have slept
had it not been a Wednesday night.
Distorted honking and quacking,

with feathers ruffled and scratching,
the rave rages and rages all night
'till the return of the sunlight
and all the wildfowl take flight.