Dark folded upon folded
thus the room was molded,
as a fire flickered and danced.
The midnight hour struck
as each minute was plucked,
screaming mortal time advanced.
There a foul long-nosed witch
scowling with teeth black as pitch
to a fire added peat from a stinking bog.
Then from out of the gloom
with a hop into the retched room
came a princely magical speckled frog.
The frog loudly belched, then spoke
in a commanding princely croak,
“for a kiss I’ll grant you one wish.”
“You frog leave me alone”
said the scraggly old crone,
“or you’ll be my dinners’ main dish.”
The frog was undeterred
and once again it gently demurred,
“a wish for a single kiss.”
There was an evil cackle,
the cry of a strangled Grackle
that ended in a venomous hiss.
“Alright, grant me a desire,
lest on a spit you roast ‘or this fire,”
so she puckered up and gave him a peck.
“My wish is without my broom
I want to soar around this room
now grant it you ugly warted speck.”
“Done,” said he with a wink
and quicker than a gnat eye blink
the witch disappeared with a sigh.
An incessant buzzing in the air
announced an insect coursing there,
the sound of a common house fly.
The frog opened its mouth
a long tongue suddenly sprang out
and swallowed the bug without a word.
Now the only sounds in the firelight
were the crickets chirping in the night
and joyously singing of a single black bird.
The frog sat before the fire
peacefully in his princely frog attire,
a most satisfied look on his froggy face.
The witch received her wished boon,
un-broomed she flew around the room
and, instead of frog for dinner, she took his place.
“Ribit!”
©2013, Donald Harbour
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