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Toad dreams

By Marge Piercy b. 1936 Marge Piercy

That afternoon the dream of the toads rang through the elms by Little River and affected the thoughts of men, though they were not conscious that they heard it.--Henry Thoreau

The dream of toads: we rarely

credit what we consider lesser

life with emotions big as ours,

but we are easily distracted,

abstracted. People sit nibbling

before television's flicker watching

ghosts chase balls and each other

while the skunk is out risking grisly

death to cross the highway to mate;

while the fox scales the wire fence

where it knows the shotgun lurks

to taste the sweet blood of a hen.

Birds are greedy little bombs

bursting to give voice to appetite.

I had a cat who died of love.

Dogs trail their masters across con-

tinents. We are far too busy

to be starkly simple in passion.

We will never dream the intense

wet spring lust of the toads.

Marge Piercy, "Toad dreams" from Stone, Paper, Knife (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983). First appeared in Mid-South Writer 2 (1981). Copyright © 1981, 1983 by Marge Piercy and Middlemarsh, Inc. Used by permission of the Wallace Literary Agency, Inc.

Source: Stone Paper Knife (Alfred A. Knopf, 1983)

Biography

Marge Piercy was born in Detroit, Michigan, into a working-class family that had been hard-hit by the Depression. Piercy was the first member of her family to attend college, winning a scholarship to attend the University of Michigan. She received an MA from Northwestern University. During the 1960s, Piercy was an organizer in political movements like the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the movement against the war . . .

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