As if his croak sounds from stone itself

As if his voice in darkness is stained with the timbre of eternity 

 

When I first saw him alone, lost in thought,

poised behind glass,

I recalled how his sperm had once spawned from the suck of motherly mud

to snatch prey with spit

A camouflaged trickster,

awakening each spring with his mates

to a spring of mating

 

Now an enigmatic relic behind glass,

perhaps he tells tales of Meroe – 

witness to that city’s sad trajectory from glory to dejection

 

In this, his last siesta, 

he readies himself for life

with his new cloak, a new tongue and his crown

 

Figure of crouching frog, in a hard fossiliferous limestone. Perhaps

an image to ensure the fertility of the rains and the Nile flood.

500 bc–ad 100. uc43984