The Coming of the Plague

September was when it began. Locusts dying in the fields; our dogs Silent, moving like shadows on a wall; And strange worms crawling; flies of a kind We had never seen before; huge vineyard moths; Badgers and snakes, abandoning Their holes in the field; the fruit gone rotten; Queer fungi sprouting; the fields and woods Covered with spiderwebs; black vapors Rising from the earth - all these, And more began that fall. Ravens flew round The hospital in pairs. Where there was water, We could hear the sound of beating clothes All through the night. We could not count All the miscarriages, the quarrels, the jealousies. And one day in a field I saw A swarm of frogs, swollen and hideous, Hundreds upon hundreds, sitting on each other, Huddled together, silent, ominous, And heard the sound of rushing wind.