The Toads' Cathedral

Another hiking inspired poem, considering the toads I observed near the summit of Big Slide Mountain.

What fathers of the marsh ordained this effort?

Upon the eastern flank of Big Slide Mountain,

The speckled splashers dash the spring melt's fountain,

And upward have their generations suffered.

Up and up they follow fleeing flies,

Each child of soil mounts higher toward their flight,

Though he cannot know his project's final height

Nor other abstracted pillars in the skies. 

The truest faith is this, and though the meal

May never be ensnared, the glacier-glazed

Crevasse will carry them, and being raised,

They have raised stones, till centuries reveal

Their summit, sustenance escaped. The plans,

Alien to them, but worked by them, are seen

On flying buttresses of red and green

On other chapels for their neighboring clans.

Reviews

[Thomas Fitzgerald]

A tough piece to write I imagine, but well done, you did it justice, a good read.

[VennelaMargame]

Thank you. It actually wasn't so difficult. Formal poems are easy, I find, because once I get a beat going, it flows naturally.

[.]

a great effort, vennela.
i applaud your rhyme scheme (not sure it was the 'best' for your poem, but you stuck with it and i appreciate that)
i loved the story. a subject dear to my heart, and you reached me with this piece.

thanks for sharing.

[VennelaMargame]

Thank you for your kind words. The rhyme scheme was just one I picked by default, because I thought that alternating couplets might be a bit thudding, especially with the iambic pentameter, and I wanted a sense of ascension more as flight than as climbing. Whether I succeeded is anyone's guess.

The idea just came to me one day reflecting on how much effort I was putting into working my way to the peak of this mountain, and there were little toads at trail-side, thousands of feet up, who thought nothing of it. I wanted to give them their dues, ha ha.

[.]

if they could thank you they would croak... :-)