April 6: Poetry Reading Tonight, Richard Wilbur, "The Death of a Toad"

I have a poetry reading to go to this evening.  Rigoberto Gonzalez tonight at the university.  I'm on my way.

Saint Marty does have a new poem for this evening.  Another beauty about life and mortality from Richard Wilbur.

Saint Marty is loving Poetry Month.

The Death of a Toad

by:  Richard Wilbur

A toad the power mower caught,
Chewed and clipped of a leg, with a hobbling hop has got
To the garden verge, and sanctuaried him
Under the cineraria leaves, in the shade
Of the ashen and heartshaped leaves, in a dim,
Low, and a final glade.

The rare original heartsblood goes,
Spends in the earthen hide, in the folds and wizenings, flows
In the gutters of the banked and staring eyes. He lies
As still as if he would return to stone,
And soundlessly attending, dies
Toward some deep monotone,

Toward misted and ebullient seas
And cooling shores, toward lost Amphibia's emperies.
Day dwindles, drowning and at length is gone
In the wide and antique eyes, which still appear
To watch, across the castrate lawn,
The haggard daylight steer.