 The frogs are dropping dead in Australia the frogs are dropping dead in Australia and no one knows why They get sick from some strange new frog pandemic and change colors and shrivel up into little brown frog mummies when they die The frogs are dropping dead in Australia Animals are dropping dead everywhere Ocean animals wash up packed full of plastic Insect animals fall from the sky and we barely notice Because it hurts enough to be human Because our tender little hearts were punched and kicked as children By big people whose tender little hearts were punched and kicked as children and We've got bills to pay and hungry ghosts to feed and The supply chains are failing and the drums of war are beating louder and louder and We are falling face first into a global future of unimaginable divergence And what a shame it will be if this all slips away without having been truly deeply Appreciated by the species whose brains allow a profound depth of appreciation And what a shame it will be if at the very least we do not revel in this creation In what may be its final moments if we do not kiss this moment as it flies If we do not kiss the frogs and the butterflies and the Leviathans as they pass us waving goodbye If we do not kiss the kick in the teeth soul-reaming beauty of each fleeting instant If we do not fall in love with people and tell them so many times If we do not write poems and write songs and write on bathroom stalls and overpasses Expressing the glory and the holiness and the belovedness of this mystery mess If we do not feel every sacred strum of heartache If we do not live emphatically live Explosively live like the explosion our still expanding universe has been undergoing for 14 billion years And what a shame it would be if we did not shout an exuberant yes to all this Even the weird parts Even the awkward parts even the ugly parts even the scary parts while we still can before they are gone for good So here's to you Australian frogs Here's to you insects and sea monsters Here's to you polar ice caps to the rainforests to the breathable air to supply chains To YouTube videos and tiktok dances To arduous days and orgasmic nights To the ones who made our hearts soar and to the ones who broke them To the Casanovas and the comrades and the capitalists To the ancaps and the shit libs and the tinfoil hatters To the psychopaths we've slept with and the ones who rule our world To all the dreams never realized and revolutions never fought. I Raise a glass to you my angels The frogs are dropping dead in Australia and no one knows why And I am just here watching and waiting like everyone else I Raise the glass to my lips and drink fermented juice Made by berries fed by starlight from the birth of our universe