SUSAN WICKS reads "Night Toad"

You can hardly see him -
his outline, his cold skin
almost a dead leaf,
blotched brown, dull green,
khaki. He sits so quietly
pumping his quick breath
just at the edge of water
between ruts in the path.
And suddenly he is the centre
of a cone of light
falling from the night sky -
ruts running with liquid fire,
cobwebs imprinted on black,
each grass-blade clear
and separate - until the hiss
of human life removes itself,
the air no longer creaks,
the shaking stops
and he can crawl back
to where he came from.
But what was this,
if it was not death?
~
From "Night Toad: New and Selected Poems"

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Thanks again.