Frog Hunt

by Lori Hershberger

The night sky cups the world
We are 7, and then 8, and then 9 searching

Like small boats in a foggy harbor
Scattered and seeking
Muffled voices call out like small foghorns
Floating alongside the lights that spread over the field,
And melting with the murmur of men’s voices from the small house beside the road

Silence, then the small burst of a song,
A small child’s shriek and laughter
Echo, and then are lost in the thin mountain night;
Cows tread through the marshy field

A low call, the patter of small feet,
Frogs frozen, caught in the patch of light
Then wiggling and wet in small hands;
The bags grow heavy.

Above, clouds shift and reshape
And the stars begin to glimmer
Over this small place we call ours,
Over the fields hard-won from the forest,
Cradled in the mountains’ heart
Lost in the rolling ranges that lap from the edge of Burma

The night sky cups over the world
We are 7, and then 8, and then 9 searching.

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Lori Hershberger is a Kansas native who currently calls Southeast Asia her home. For her, poetry is healing and lifegiving.

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