Mark Johnson

Orpheus and Eurydice in Spring Gardens

 

That year the flowers were late,

and in Spring Gardens shoppers

wore winter garb beyond the given term.

Warming soup at Waitrose still sold strong

The queues for coffee at Nero stretched hangdog long.

 

But come late April, the first sun sliced in

carved chunks away from winter gloom.

Slice by slice it whittled down the grey

lifted hands from pockets ‘till…

you heard the shoppers say

I wonder if the frogs and toads have come to Lightwood today?

 

As if on cue, a trump, a croak

first one, then two, then more

until above the distant traffic roar

a swelling orchestra of sound.

 

A hop, a crawl, a sudden bound

and there before wide shoppers’ eyes

past Iceland and the Chakra Lounge

a ragged amphibian file came round

 

the corner of the street, a river running

about shoppers’ feet. A muddy lava flow

of frogs and toads that bubbled, seethed,

divided, recombined, surged on, until – behind,

 

a frantic, shamanic figure came into view.

The toads, the toads, his plaintive cry

It’s as if some unearthed primeval drive

Has veered them off their normal route!

 

The toads flowed on, the frogs in sync,

Marched on until, the traffic lights on blink

the river crossed the road, flowed up the slope

then down, slowed to an artful lope

 

stopped for a moment – one bass profundo croak

rang out. And then as if one, the river made

a turn that would have done a Guardsman proud.

Marched into the Pump Room silently

 

— and vanished into the well’s fathomless deep.

One lonely figure stood outside, bereft.

What made them head into that cleft?

But then a smile across his face:

 

What know we, of simple human race

Of frogs and toads, their mysteries?

Nature is a wondrous thing

You never know what joys it brings

One thing only, this I know:

Where go the toads, then there I go…

And so…

 

(No animals were hurt in the making of this poem, although considerable liberties were taken take with amphibian science and Greek Myth)