Revival

Porchsitting on buggy, muggy evenings,
I can't ever stay uncheered
By the full-on, untented open-air revival

Of frogs, that strophe,
Antistrophe chorus, the hip-hop
Of the slough, mosquito-zapping rhythms,

Amphibian bebop, ping and ring,
A tabernacle chiming.
Mosey into the bulwark

Of bulrushes as the sun sinks under sedge
At the brimful pond's rim where
Cooters plop. The jazz, the jive

Of all alive hurrays. Hear the news?

Copyright © 2006 Jeannette Barnes All rights reserved
from Southern Poetry Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission