In 2020 I met up with my friend Jennie at Cannon Hill Park on the South Hill. We’d been cooped up because of mandates and sickness. We spread out her blanket, sewn with a variety of leftover quilt squares combined in an entrancing pattern.
We laid out our navy-filigreed white china to enjoy afternoon tea and socialize like we hadn’t been able to in the cold. But as we sat to chat and snack, the pond shook itself to life.
That’s when I heard them sing: a song of low throat hum.
“There’s an entire chorus of frogs here,” I said.
“It’s beautiful, right? Those frogs, American Bullfrogs, they’re actually invasive!”
My eyes focused on one of the brazen Bullfrogs. I saw him, that outlaw, swimming with no care, propelling himself leisurely across the murky water. I watched as the other animals provided a wide berth for him. On the outskirts of the pond, ducks waded carefully through the tall grass with their ducklings dipping under the water to play or grab a quick bite. Turtles hovered close to the edge of the pond. The fish were unseen. No small birds flew above the water despite the bugs swarming just over its surface.
It was that day that I found out about the American Bullfrog’s voracious omnivorous appetite and relentless spawning. Frogs cannot live without meat. Something I never knew. Looking at it again, the pond was filled with what seemed more frog than fish. Was it their fault they flourished in an environment that they were brought into as a supplementary food source, a capitalistic venture?
I now know that it is more legal to kill them than keep them. There’s no need for a permit and the means to their end doesn’t matter. In fact, saving one of them could lead to the death of thousands of native species. They who are cannibal. These quick and brutal killers of small fowl, turtles, and frogs.
I still cannot shake the sound of their beautiful forceful thrumming. I fear for the small ones living in those waters. I want to save them and I cannot bring myself to dish out what the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife might deem as justice or perhaps Darwinism.
Instead, my eyes are stuck on the dexterity and grace of their legs bounding through water. Instead, my ears resonate with their humming while I carefully fill my belly with Earl Grey tea and homemade brownies. I watch their survival in hopes to better understand the complexity and fragility of my own.
Sarah Rooney is a NB poet who created “Speakeasy” Open Mic in March of 2022. They co-organize “Foray for the Arts,” a traveling multidisciplinary, monthly event series in Spokane with Greg Bem. They are pursuing their MFA in poetry at EWU and their first chapbook, Mother Media, was published in October, 2023. They are working on releasing their second collection, Egos Mythos, in the summer of 2025. They can be found on instagram at @_mixophrygonium_.