Pseudacris crucifer, the Northern Spring Peeper, is a tiny tree frog that choruses in the tens of thousands in thickly forested regions of the Appalachian mountains through early spring to early summer. A regional indicator species, these frogs are sensitive to pollutants and mining runoff, common problems of the rural Southern West Virginia coalfields.

The original field recordings were made in the thick temperate forest on the Weaver’s family farm in West Virginia, directly adjacent to a road that rumbles with overburdened coal trucks.

An audio-biography of the tenuous West Virginia spring forest at night, the work is exhibited in multichannel installation format or as live performance. In the performed version, Weaver samples from a database of recordings of treefrogs, night creatures, coal trucks.

Excerpt of the raw recordings below.

Addendum: this forest was clearcut in 2017 after the Weaver family finally lost their farm due to many culumlative hardships. The land has since been leased to a large strip mining operation.

Treefrogs, Route 60

Each voice a signal, punctuating,
flares on the side of the highway, jackknife
CB crackle, Morse code, swampfire

in the holler. Your instruments: water,
treebark, moisture, wringing air

while we sleep. You rouse
night cities, ten thousand
thousand voices. Hollering

with no warning: an orchestra
crushed in steel. Running,

the dogs are barking, our dying
flashlight beams pointed at the road
through steam and trees at flames

in the dark. I’m thinking about
the songs I’ll never sing, the way

your throats ring and mark
the night, dream indifference,
leaden like pondwater, vibrating

lullaby, floating bodies, tuning
forks, short little lives.