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Look Again
Mary Oliver
What you have never noticed about the toad, probably,
is that his tongue is attached not to the back of his mouth but
the front--how far it extends
when the fly hesitates on a near-enough leaf! Or that
his front feet, which are sometimes padded, hold three nimble
digits--had anyone
a piano small enough I think the toad could learn
to play something, a little Mozart maybe, inside
the cool cellar of the sandy hill--and if
the eyes bulge they have gold rims,
and if the smile is wide it never fails,
and the warts, the delicate uplifts of dust-colored skin, are
neither random nor suggestive of dolor, but rather are
little streams of jewelry, in patterns pf espousal and pleasure,
running up and down their crooked backs, sweet and alive in the sun.
(published in Why I Wake Early, 2004)
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