This Perspective first aired April 2, 2019.
Let us now praise …. spring peepers!
The chorus of these late-March miracles rises from the vernal pool in the froggy bottomland near home. Did you even know your neighborhood had a vernal pool? Wet in spring, dry in summer, vernal pools are the mating waters of spring peepers, who emerge from their tree-bark coffins after the first thaw and frogwalk toward water. Once moist, they erupt, piercing cold March air with their choir — boy, do they! — part sleighbell, part warble, part toad carol. Their evensong is a lovesong, of course, the best sort. Frozen solid these long months, their sap now runs free, and neither can they contain their ruckus. Could you? Praise them.
Just try to find one. Take your girl down to the pool shore by the railbed to spy her a chorus frog. Creep all you want; once near, the peepers cease, those thousands of swole throats silenced and disappeared! To spy a peeper, you have to pretend not to look. One day you find one eyeballing you midpane your kitchen window. Another day you find two suction-cupping this very keyboard, their backs glistening. Praise them.
You tried to sing, but never could. Is that why they enamor you? Your voice croaked, and the choir coach cringed. Please, he said, just mouth the words — and so you did, and still do. Now they serenade you from the train track, and it's too good to be true. Praise them.
It takes a poet. Lorine Niedecker, Wisconsin's best, praised them better than you ever might. From her Blackhawk Island cabin, she sang, Get a load of April’s fabulous frog rattle. Lowland freightcars in the night.
I'm Chris Fink, and this is the chorus.
Thanks to Wikimedia Commons for the Spring Peeper audio.
Copy Edited by Eryn Lent
