Poems by Jonathan B. Aibel
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All Good Frogs Should be Asleep
by Jonathan B. Aibel
Jonathan lives in the former lands of glaciers, the watershed of the Assabet River, shortly before it joins the Sudbury to create the Concord River which flows north into the wilds of New Hampshire.
Snow yesterday, a real nor'easter
calf-high, heavy and wet.
And Warner's Pond all ice
thick enough to walk on.
Lucien, listen! A single frog calls,
lonely when he should be dreaming
In the chilly mud, as we once wished
you would be, a baby tucked into sleep
after three stories with George the Frog
the last. We made George a winter insomniac
so we could have bedtime stories
in Decembers long past, do you remember?
Once there was a frog named George,
who was twenty-two and one half years old,
which you might think is rather old for a frog,
but George came from a long-lived species of frog
and so it wasn't very old for him. George grew up
in the Assabet river and his best friend in the world
was a medium-sized boy named Lucien, who lived
near, but not in, the Assabet River.
So we began every night, ages ago for you,
for me, yesterday. And today I hear him,
a lone frog in the cold, waiting for his friend,
the boy with a pocket-full of sugar-coated flies.
© Jonathan B. Aibel
One Unseasonable
by Jonathan B. Aibel
warm
day, my city melts;
every drain pipe
a dance beat,
gutters become streams,
from sunshine atop
an immaculate seagull
cries his victory
before the bricks slide
and blue glass curtains
shimmer and drip,
reflected in the choppy
harbor. Subways fill
from the tracks: mice
escape in coracles
by the thousands, people
caught in winter quicksand
tell the story
of their lives
chasing love and money
in the frozen city.
© Jonathan B. Aibel