The Toad

Keeper of the damp earth,

you rise from mud and moonlight,

skin glistening like the memory of rain,

eyes heavy with ancient knowing.

You are not only lowly,

but a vessel:

the one who carries transformation

in your dewey flesh.

Your body bears the mark of both realms,

water and soil,

birth and decay,

reminding us that life itself

is a cycle of dissolving and return.

Once, they feared your touch,

said you carried curses in your skin,

poison in your breath,

that witches hid your bones

to stir their charms to life.

They called you foul,

yet sought your essence in secret,

for every healer knows

that medicine and magic are twins.

Toad, you are not afraid of ugliness.

You sit unblinking in the mire,

patient as stone,

content to be unseen,

knowing what grows in shadow.

In your croak,

there is the voice of rain and renewal.

In your stillness,

the promise of becoming,

that even what crawls through mud

can carry the soul of the sacred.