Feral Friends,

Slowly waking She makes moonlight shadows into fishy shimmers, swampy marigold sparks, sunburst fleabanes, naiads into damsels, tadpole wishes barely into frogs, breezy rustles into vagrant grebes, loopy midges, hickory plunks, cat-back yogas lean slightly to the south, mossy chakras get greenish to the north. Autumn pools behind Her eyelids. Summer lingers on slippery skin going barefoot for now. 

Find yourself in a wild place with wild things. A creek or pond works nicely. Slowly open wide your eyes/close with inbreath/out. Every blink when savored makes whole a day or a year; close your eyes for winter Solstice open wide for June, halfway open or closed makes equinoxes, noon and dusk, midnight, dawn. 

And not just time: eyelids make a Cosmos with a thousand eyes upon you woven of blood and bone pulse and tissue, space, sound, spark and womb, slither and flight, swims and dances. Best to be barefoot, soul exposed to the richness of life all around and within. Live in a Cosmos of your senses for a day or a year in the space of a single blink, your whole-life in a moment.

And little frogs,

Jack Phillips

Photo: Neometamorph Blanchard’s cricket frog (Acris blanchardi) with duckweed (Lemna sp.) and watermeal (Wolffia sp.) in late September in Fremont County Iowa. By Angélica Perez.