frozen frog

the frozen frog

Snow still 6 inches deep at 300 metres, I`d been running in Size 8 or 9`s walking-boot prints: fresh today, sometimes splayed, herring boning up the slippy slope towards Bold Burn`s source. Then scuffling prints where dog and walker merged, played, or where leash wrapped around legs even. Then at the hill`s crest, walker`s prints went on backwards, admiring the view, the light, taking a photo, calling dog away from deer scent. And right-angling their walk, roe deer tracks scored their own careful paths from woodland to woodland. 

I wondered if the creatures met at all or if, like me,  inhabited different spaces of time. All of us though seemed to be present in the eternal "now". Our passing prints fleetingly evidenced this.

I stopped to pee over a sapling pine tree. Wondered lazily if I was nurturing or poisoning it. There`s nitrogen and potassium in urine, I thought. I`ll come back soon - see if the plant is burnt or thriving. Then looking down right I see a small frog sitting on a stone: 2 inch long body, 4 inches  if the back legs extended into a leap. Sharp angled, the colour and patina of cherry shoe polish. I gently poke the frog with a stick. I`m mildly startled that it`s hard and stuck fast to its rock like an aborted fossil. I stare. Life`s spark has gone. Either last year`s remnant or precocious victim of a late springtime.

Following the Bold Burn as it runs by the roadside, heading to Glenbenna I look out for the Heron, who hates company and flies off, wings like strings and pulleys, whenever I`m near. Muttering under his breath.

As I pass his haunt I see no sign, thinking he`s at his Heronry until, looking into the still pool, I see his submerged body, like an avian Ophelia. A cloud of feathers by his side. Victim of a fox or the life frozen out of him.