​​Needing a break from the

New York Times, CNN and

the new millennium, in which

atrocities multiply and anxious

regimes bulk up on nuclear

technology or revert to Cold

War neuroses, I picked up The 

National Mirror, whose 

banner headline reads:

Exploding Toads!

            “This

weekend as day-trippers from

Hamburg, Germany, arrived at 

a popular picnic spot north

of the city, they encountered

a scene of grotesque carnage.

The blown-apart carcasses 

of thousands of cane toads

lay strewn, piecemeal, on the

grass and along the banks of

a pristine lake.”

            Tabloid hoax?

Industrial pollutants — cocktails

of toxic chemicals leaching

into the soil?  Something

to do with microbes?

terrorists? germ

warfare (imagination

ever the blowpipe.

            No:

The toads, it says, were

frightened to death by

large flocks of crows—

birds whose population, 

a German biologist notes,

has surged in recent years.

“The toad’s reflex, when

danger menaces, is to

take in air, expanding

to nearly four times its

ordinary size.  The

spectacle scares away

many predators.” But

the crows weren’t fazed.

And so, “The toads’

panic buttons became 

stuck on ‘bloat.’”  They

scared themselves to pieces.

 

Poem by Bill Christophersen

From Its Shadow Rakes the Grass (2023)