by Bill Keller
Wash your hands with rainwater,
then grasp the soft amphibians
by their middles, or enclose
them in your cupped fingers.
Be gentle! Feel how delicate
they are, though bones frame
their damp skin. (Notice the
evidence on the pavement.)
Keep on the course they set, then
put them down just off the road.
They need no help finding the
leaf-bottomed pools they seek.
On a soggy night in spring,
do this kindness for a world
that, mostly without meaning to,
we spend our days demolishing.
Bill Keller is a photographer, novelist, and poet who lives in the Hudson Valley.