It’s proof of happenstance unlucky. A collision of metal and meek. It’s the reality check of immortality that exists where any pavement intersects with nature. Most pass the aftermath of roadkill at high speeds. Glimpse only in a passing flash, or notice not at all.

Get out of the car, take a walk down quieter streets, and you’ll still see the damage from man and machine. On my road, for instance, it’s chickens, frogs and centipedes that are typical casualties. It’s a bit macabre, but if you can, suspend for just a moment the regret and sadness that accompanies dead animals in the road. I’ve had to, as the disfigured bodies on the asphalt have become an inevitable part of my daily morning walk.

If you can, set aside the grief of life lost. Pause for a moment on pity. Buffer against the reflex to recoil at decaying flesh. Do this, ever-briefly, and suddenly there’s wonder.

Flattened on the road, there lies an amphibian sacrifice for enlightenment. A graphic display – proof-positive – of the unseen. Shining in the sunlight, guts and sinew splay from smooth frog skin, reminding. There’s a lot at work behind the scenes.

To view that frog, alive and resting in the grasses, one would never know all that occurs within. The beating heart, the pumping blood, the impulses sent from brain to limbs. An entire universe of vibrant tissue and nerve is just below the surface of that greenish glistening skin, hidden from view. What we don’t see is what keeps that frog existing.

This frog-friend’s corpse, abandoned by the roadside, offers up a sacred reminder, elevating its passing to a sacred kind of gift.

There is more than what appears to be.
Forces at work that are hidden.
More than what we see.