what to learn from a frog

a frog in a pot won't sit still

no matter how powerful the urban myth
is it still a heap?
it won't let itself be boiled

gradually heated water
increasingly focused on escape
it will jump

the frog understands
inaction equals death


Notes

The urban myth (indeed, it's not true: the frog will escape if it can when the temperature of the water starts rising) and metaphor of the boiling frog is often used to describe the effects of inaction to and ignorance of global warming. Former Vice President of the United States Al Gore used it in the 2006 movie An Inconvenient Truth. This poem centers the action a frog will take.


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