Listen to a reading of this poem:
❖
The frogs are dropping dead in Australia, and no one knows why.
They get sick from some strange new frog pandemic and change colors
and shrivel up into little brown frog mummies when they die.
The frogs are dropping dead in Australia.
Animals are dropping dead everywhere.
Ocean animals wash up packed full of plastic,
insect animals fall from the sky,
and we barely notice, because it hurts enough to be human,
because our tender little hearts were punched and kicked as children
by big people whose tender little hearts were punched and kicked as children,
and we’ve got bills to pay and hungry ghosts to feed,
and the supply chains are failing and the drums of war are beating louder and louder,
and we are falling face first into a global future of unimaginable divergence.
And what a shame it will be if this all slips away
without having been truly deeply appreciated
by the species whose brains allow a profound depth of appreciation.
And what a shame it will be if, at the very least,
we do not revel in this creation in what may be its final moments,
if we do not kiss this moment as it flies,
if we do not kiss the frogs and the butterflies and the leviathans as they pass us waving goodbye,
if we do not kiss the kick-in-the-teeth soul-reaming beauty of each fleeting instant,
if we do not fall in love with people and tell them so many times,
if we do not write poems and write songs and write on bathroom stalls and overpasses
expressing the glory and the holiness and the belovedness of this mysterymess,
if we do not feel every sacred strum of heartache,
if we do not live, emphatically live, explosively live
like the explosion our still-expanding universe has been undergoing for 14 billion years.
And what a shame it would be if we did not shout an exuberant yes to all of this,
even the weird parts,
even the awkward parts,
even the ugly parts,
even the scary parts,
while we still can,
before they are gone for good.
So here’s to you, Australian frogs.
Here’s to you, insects and sea monsters.
Here’s to the polar ice caps,
to the rainforests,
to breathable air,
to supply chains,
to YouTube videos and TikTok dances,
to arduous days and orgasmic nights,
to the ones who made our hearts soar and to the ones who broke them,
to the Casanovas and the comrades and the capitalists,
to the ancaps and the shitlibs and the tinfoil hatters,
to the psychopaths we’ve slept with and the ones who rule our world,
to all the dreams never realized and revolutions never fought,
I raise a glass to you, my angels.
The frogs are dropping dead in Australia, and no one knows why.
And I am just here, watching and waiting, like everyone else.
I raise the glass to my lips
and drink fermented juice
made by berries
fed by starlight
from the birth of our universe.
__________________________
__________________________
__________________________
My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here.
Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
6 responses to “The Frogs Are Dropping Dead In Australia”
If you do not want More Of The Same, do not vote for another R or D, ever, no matter what an R or D promises!
The owners of the world have decided on the ‘solution’ to this problem – of their making. It’s called covid pandemic and vaccine.
The purpose is to depopulate the planet to a number around one half to one billion people. That way the owners can continue to do what they do without having ‘useless eaters’ consuming what rightfully belongs to the owners. I guess this would be the final solution.
as a side note, you might want to reconsider having captcha as a precondition to commenting and ditto for having anything to do with google
The powers-that-be, forces-that-are have realized tyranny does not include them-they will be among the first to go into the fire if they continue this charade. How many will gamble their authority, be it political, social economic or informational is still emerging, which was the trap from the beginning-ie ‘all-in becomes join or die’, IMO.
The beast is still hiding behind the curtain, but it’s flailing arms are now more of a threat to itself than anyone else. Let it do it’s bit and hold the moonbeam on target.
Stay strong, love life
I don’t know what I could possibly add, or how to respond, other than, if there is a God, and there is, and that God is us, I hope we’re listening.
This can’t be how it ends on this infinitely precious planet, made of stardust from the big bang leading over eons to the miracle of life, the mystery of consciousness, the beauty beyond all reckoning around us and inside us. This can’t be how it ends…but it will be if God is only us, which means there isn’t one. The terrible truth is that we can no longer help ourselves to avoid utter catastrophe. We’re too deeply addicted to wealth and power, not only our “leaders” but many if not most of us being “led” as well. The first step in the twelve step program is to admit our helplessness and reach out to a higher power, however one conceives of it. That’s what I read between the lines of Caitlin’s desperately beautiful, heartrendingly tragic poem. May the power that created this universe, a power inconceivably greater than ourselves, a power for whom all things are possible, even those which seem impossible, fill us somehow, some way, at this last moment, with reverence for life. And may that power bless Caitlin Johnstone.
🙂