From Tetrus, father of the land's great nations,
Two sons arose who chose two different roads:
One broke in full from water's old foundations,
One heard the lake still calling through the woods.
The first would father those who sealed their birth
In eggs of air and broke from water's hold,
Who built their children's lives across the earth
Where even drought could not diminish bold.
But Amphibos still heard the water calling
And chose the threshold as his sacred home,
Where forest met the flood-plain, night-mist falling,
And coal-swamp vapors rose like silver foam.
"I am the child of two great worlds," he cried,
"The river's son who breathes the open air,
I walk the land yet keep the lake my bride
And find my truest home where both are there."
For Amphibos had learned the ancient art
Of transformation deep within his kind:
His children entered life with larva's heart
Then shed that skin to leave the streams behind.
They burst from water, limbs still trembling new,
And breathed the air of coal-swamp forests tall,
Where Lepidos spread canopies of blue
And Meganeura ruled the humid hall.
Four children claimed the kingdoms of his care:
Great Temna, Rana, Salamandrus, Caecila—
The warrior, the singer, and the rare
Blind burrower beneath the ancient floor.
Great Temna was his eldest, warrior-born,
Who built her empire in the darkest fen,
She ruled the swamp-edge, midnight until morn—
The greatest beast that walked the coal swamp then.
From Temna came a dynasty of might:
Young Eryops walked upon the solid shore
And hunted under both the day and night,
A barrel-chested warrior built for war.
Her daughter Mastod ruled the river's breast,
Whose skull was flat as any table laid,
She swam in silence, letting current rest
Her patient body in the water's shade.
Great Branchios chose to never leave the stream—
He kept his gills throughout his ancient days
And breathed through feathered crimson plumes that gleam
Like scarlet flowers in the coal-swamp haze.
Fair Rana leapt to claim the marsh's grace—
Her young were born in water, pure and whole,
As tadpoles first who earned their limbs by race,
As if each life must mirror life's own soul.
Ten thousand kinds of frogs arose and knew
The ancient secret of the transformation's rite,
Their singing voices rang through evening dew
And called the summer rainstorm through the night.
Young Salamandrus chose a quieter path—
Four limbs and long tail trailing through the moss,
He found the places sheltered from the wrath
Of sun, and counted moisture as his cross.
From Salamandrus came the pale Proteid
Who never grew beyond his larval state,
Who breathed through gills throughout his life indeed
And found within the cave his own true fate.
Last Caecila descended underground
And shed her eyes like garments worn too thin,
In worm-rich tropical earth she always found
More riches than the sighted found within.
Her skin grew rings like earthworms, smooth and tight,
And many who encountered her would say
She was no more than worm—but in the night
She proved herself a hunter in her way.
Thus from Amphibos' ancient, blessed line
Came frog and toad and salamander bright,
Came caecilians through tropical earth and vine—
The children of both water's depth and light.
They teach us of the threshold's sacred truth:
That life is sometimes strongest at the seams—
The child who lives in water in its youth
Then sheds that form for air and wider dreams.
So honor those who master life's great edge,
Who need not choose between the deep and high,
Who build their homes upon the water's ledge
And breathe as freely in the stream as sky.