MVVM: 'The Six Frogs of the Holy-water Font (poem)

THE SIX FROGS OF THE HOLY-WATER FONT

Everywhere in the world,
there are frogs, sharing one order with the toads,
like in the tropical girdle of emerald islands.
The frogs of nature are versatile amphibians
living their own lives on land and in the water,
confining themselves to things which belong to them.
They far from resemble those of sacred cultures
that feed on hard and impertinent dogmas.

Yesterday, their cultural freedom was independence:
the freedom of a people that bravely beat
and chased away its colonial ruler,
severing all ties with the Orange Raj
and its chilly frog country to the north.
But the freedom of the State is not the state of freedom.
Today, it is the liberty of the most powerful
to oppress the compatriots who differ,
to impose their totalitarian conception
of private life on each and every citizen,
to reserve matrimony for Their elect,
the believers of six chosen religious creeds.

Nowhere in the world
have the frogs of nature criminalized
all sexual contacts outside marriage.
The frogs of culture, tho, call for punitive measures,
while religiously hiding their own behavior.
They threw off a yoke, and became a yoke themselves.
The girdle is tightened, the emerald darkened,
freedom faded out.

Vincent van Mechelen
80.LNW

The title and the references to frogs in the above poem are inspired by the expression in Cette Langue grenouille de bénitier, meaning literally frog of the holy-water font, that is, the large vessel with the water which frogs feel attracted to. In a figurative sense a 'frog of the holy-water font' is a person of excessive devotion, a fervent, if not bigoted, follower of religious practices (originally Christian or Catholic). On the one hand, in the poem a frog of the holy-water font may be a believer of whatever religion, but on the other hand, the expression is expressly reserved for people who impose, or attempt to impose, the ideas, practices and rules of their own religion(s) on those who believe in something different or not at all.

* La taille de police initiale de 38 % ou plus pour le poème proprement dit est une taille à laquelle il existe une correspondance complète entre une ligne poétique (ou 'vers') et une ligne typographique. Avec une taille de police standard de 100 %, une ligne poétique peut être divisée en deux ou plusieurs lignes typographiques successives en fonction de la largeur de la fenêtre d'affichage.

Les Six grenouilles de bénitier is a parallel version in Cette Langue