Thursday, August 31, 2006

Carl Sandburg

This is one of my favorite poems.

FOG

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

by Carl Sandburg

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

This is froggy. My husband came up with the unfortunate nickname while we were changing her. She started kicking madly, as if trying to escape the unpleasant task by swimming off the bed. I thought it was a horrible nickname, suitable only for a child with bulging eyes and a bowlegged gait. But the name stuck and now my attempts of changing it to something cute like 'sweetpea' or 'pumkin butt' are futile. A frog is an amphibian. The word amphibian means, "living or able to live on land and in water" or "of a mixed or twofold nature." I like this definition for my girl. It suits her. She was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis at three months and has already dealt with more in the last year than most people do their entire lives. Little froggies survive. Because if life gets too hot on land, they hop in the water. And when their toes get pruny and the crocodiles circle, they perch on a lily pad to bask in the sun. She's a survivor, my froggy, kicking like mad to get to where she needs to go.