Old Pond

by Alfred A. Marks

A frog who would a-water-sounding go

Into some obscure algae-covered pool

had best be sure no poetasting fool

Is waiting in the weeds and, to his woe,

Commemorates his pluck so all will know

His name and lineage, not for the fine school

He learned to sing at, nor, to make men drool

The flavor of his leg from thigh to toe.

He will not for his mother be remembered,

Nor for his father’s deeds, his honor bright,

Nor for his brother’s leg dismembered,

And eaten by a king with rare delight.

He will be famous simply for the sorta

Noise he makes just when he hits the water.

From Hiroaki Sato’s One Hundred Frogs, New York: Inklings/Weatherhill, 1995, page 70, where it appeared with the headnote of “(sonnet)” but no title—thus the title of “Old Pond” is mine.