I was driving home last night and something in the road moved, maybe a piece of paper or a leaf, and for the tiniest moment I thought it might be a toad jumping in front of the car. Which made me think of a drive I used to do, seven or eight years ago, and one summer where it seemed that every night I was driving along a drizzly or misty road and there were dozens or hundreds of tiny toads everywhere, jumping in the road, in the grass, all around. It almost made me cry because I knew I couldn't help but hit some of them.
One memorable night, in fact, I swerved to avoid a toad, spun out my old Volvo, and went off the road. My body was full of terrified adrenaline, my heart was beating, but the car and I were unharmed. I drove shaking straight to the door of a man I didn't yet realize I was falling in love with. It wasn't the man I was living with at the time.
Anyway, I thought of all of this, of living in the country where my drives home would involve toads, everywhere, as I drove through low-lying marshy areas where the evening mist was forming. There were turtles, too, during spring and summer. Sometimes I would stop to help them along. And foxes, moose, wild turkeys. I still see all of these critters now and then, but it's remarkable now in a way it wasn't then. Oh, who am I kidding. It was always remarkable. But it was more frequent then. I thought of how long its been since I've seen a frog or a toad trying to cross the road. I don't have to go far to paths where I still get glimpses of toads (and when I do I always stop to pick them up). But they don't live here in the suburbs; they're not a part of my commute.
And all of a sudden last night I remembered a poem about an old man trying to save the toads crossing the road. I must have read it in high school, and all I remembered was the gist of it, an image and a fragment of words: "hands full of wet brown life." Thanks to Google I found it here. I don't think I thought much of the poem when I read it in high school, and I don't remember thinking of it on those summer nights when my heart was breaking and all I wanted to do was stop my own car and bring the toads safely to the side of the road. But I was glad to remember it last night.
An old Volvo? I could have predicted that.
Posted by: Rufus | September 28, 2004 at 08:51 PM
You know, I remember it as my old Volvo, but it couldn't have been. It was the summer before I moved down to Portland to go to law school, and by then I was driving my Honda Accord. So, Rufus, we're both wrong.
Posted by: Scheherazade | September 29, 2004 at 11:14 AM
Thank youu.. I've been looking for this poem for years :)
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