Frog

Two days ago I caught a frog in my house. Apparently, it had hopped thru the dog door, passed thru the mudroom, evading my cat and had no idea where it had landed. It took some doing to corner and catch it. I have often had to rescue birds from my cat or from blundering into my studio but this animal was harder to herd and catch than a bird.

When I had managed to secure it between my cupped hands, I was astonished at it's strength. It couldn't have weighed more than several ounces. I outweighed it astronomically. But I was no match for the power of it's efforts to leap to an illusion of safety, away from me, heedless of the resident, very predatory cat.

Yet once it was safely within my cupped hands, it had stopped struggling and was very still. I marveled at the strength and perfection, the texture and aliveness of what I held in my hands, so vulnerable to global warming.

I was fortuneate on this occasion that my cat was busy elsewhere. Very carefully I carried my captive outside, somehow managing the door knob without releasing the frog. I shooed my remaining and curious dog away and carefully set the frog alongside a small pond on the other side of my driveway.

For several minutes it remained still. Then in a flash it took a mighty leap off a the relative cliff that overhangs the water, two feet below and vanished.

I will restrain myself from philosophical comment about the implications to me of this encounter or parallels to what might be a prudent response to global warming except to pass along Al Gore's response to Larry King about whether he feels fear (about global warming). Gore responded to King by recounting how the Chinese symbol for danger and opportunity are identical, only reversed.