Finch & Frog

The finch trills in the apple tree
His: Tiriliree!
A frog climbs slowly up to him,
Up to the treetop’s leafy rim
And puffs right up and croaks: “Hallooo,
Ol’ chum: see, I c’n do it too!”

And as the bird his song of spring
So sweetly to the world doth sing,
The frog chimes in with sassy tones
And interjects his bassy drones.

The finch exclaims: “O Joy, hurray!
I’ll fly away!”
And springs into the azure sky.

“Hah!” cries the frog, “Well so kin I!”
He makes a most ungainly bound
And splats onto the bare hard ground.
He’s pancake flat, and that’s no joke:
He’s croaked his very final croak.

If someone climbs laboriously
Into the branches of a tree
And thinks himself a bird to be:
Wrong is he.