Stalking frogs

tree frog I
Originally uploaded by c'estbonne

They sound like small dying cows, and they know when you're drawing near, no matter how quiet you are.

But first there was the moose. A large, lumpy brown moose, browsing on the other side of the wetland that sprawls away from a road near where I live. I spotted her during an evening walk, and stepped off the road onto a dirt pullover to watch her for a while.

Then I heard the tired, strained moans, and my other senses became attentive. For a while I convinced myself that perhaps a duck was caught and dying in fishing line, the sound was so hoarse and woeful. I was afraid to look, but couldn't help myself...and I started down a dirt path beside the water to see what I could find.

Frogs. I finally realized they were frogs, and I never did manage to see one (the photo is from another time and place altogether). But they really do sound dreadful, and they led me into a whole world that I might have missed. Because the more I looked and listened in this wetland setting, the more I discovered, until I was swept away with the life that was there. The scent, a sweet fragrance of wild purple phlox in full bloom, and air washed fresh from a June rain; the color, a sky charcoal-yellow with an approaching summer thunderstorm; the sound, the musical chatter of a finch from a tall cottonwood; the movement, an absolute ballet of jumping fish, leaping and twisting and skimming the surface all over the water. With binoculars I spotted an old beaver lodge and a mother duck with her entourage of young. I let myself stalk some frogs, and the next thing I knew, I had an entire National Geographic's worth of nature right under my nose.

I also couldn't help but notice a large new home across the water. A fabulous setting, overlooking this wetland with its moose and peace and wildlife. It had a terraced lawn approaching the water's edge, a hammock strung between two fir trees. A sitting nook with chairs was nestled against a bank below the house; three stories' worth of tall windows reflected beautifully over the marsh; an open second-floor deck awaited company. But the only sign of life I could see there was the flashing picture of a huge flat-screen television inside.

Whose life will we choose to live? The lives we see on TV and the internet, or the life outside that's waiting for us to see it--our own?