I heard the frogs in the vernal pools today. That’s where they mate, in those puddles we get in low-lying areas in Spring. These aren’t the high-chirping tree frogs we call knee-deeps, these are the larger land critters. And their mating call sounds a lot like a bird’s cluck, but just slightly more metallic, like a clunk.
So of course I thought of Edna St Vincent Millay’s poem “Assault”:
“ I had forgotten how the frogs must sound
After a year of silence, else, I think
I should not so have ventured forth alone
At dusk upon this unfrequented road.
I am waylaid by Beauty. Who will walk
Between me and the crying of the frogs?
Oh, savage Beauty, suffer me to pass,
That am a timid woman, on her way
From one house to another.”