Quack ,Quack, Splash

Dedicated to Grandmafottz whose video reminded me to feed the ducks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42u13Cht-g8&playnext_from=TL&videos=1h...

A large mallard launches
From a wooden bollard
Hitting the water, wings half furled
Webbed orange feet splayed forward
A deluges of droplets fly up
Refracting weak spring sunlight
As a myriad of miniature rainbows
Chaos ensues
Ducks and geese squabble
Past grievances remembered
Arses are pecked and feathers ruffled
This is like water off a ducks back
Quickly forgotten
When
... Bread approaches.

Calypso dances with delight
The red, yellow, and green beads
Woven in her dreads, take flight
She jumps
Yellow wellington boots
Landing squarely in a muddy puddle
The elderly Chinese man
Who looks like Confucius
With a white straggly beard and black quilted jacket
Nimbly dodges a deluge of dirty water
He hands her a bag of bread
Together they feed the ducks.



For Calypso, like the ducks
Now is the only reality
The past is familiar but far too close to be remarkable
Whilst the future is distant
Fraught with unimaginable uncertainty
She throws bread to each duck and goose
Cajoling and criticising each by turn
Watching as yellow bills break bread
Watching a trail of silver bubbles
From a small brown duck
That dives deep in the clear water
Calypso, like her namesake
Reigns supreme, confident on her enchanted island
Where each day passes like a dream.

For Confucius, memories
Resurface like the diving duck
Bobbing up unexpectedly
Disturbing the mirrored surface of reality
He remembers the long march
The collective farm, where casual cruelty held sway
He remembers escaping over the Tibetan plateau
Where ice-cold winds froze his soul
He remembers a woman
An exile
From a sun drenched Caribbean island
Half a world from home
Whose, lilting verse and home cooked food
Through forty years
Brought warmth and thawed his soul

A skein of geese, in perfect formation
Fly low over the lake, honking loudly
The old man wonders...
If he could fly, follow these geese
Would they lead him back to her?
Now intervenes...
A part of her is here is now
Calypso has fed the ducks
She has her book bag
Hand in hand, they head off towards the library.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• Poetry
• poem
• ducks
• Peter
• Litton

[flan984]

This was great! I like the simple images this poem conjures up in my mind, that then morph into mythical and legendary settings, and then, by the end return to the initial simplicity. And it's very ingenious the way the ducks, throughout it all, serve as a conducting line. Smoothly done. :)

[nordicsky]

@flan984

Wow thanks mate. I'm just a self taught poet, picking it up by reading other poets.

I started out writing pure narrative but gradually I'm begining to incorperate metaphor and ideas into my poems. I like the idea of a theme to provide imagery on which to hang the poem.

I will checkout your site.

Considerações amáveis, Peter

[DuckHuntingAddiction]

Wdf

[janeczka]

'a myriad of miniature rainbows' - I love this image.

[Idlinfarm]

Wonderful poem. Where we live we can't feed the ducks anymore----not their natural diet. We watch them. Mating time now.

[naomie76]

Interesting poem, it's a lot to think about.

[peebzzz]

love love love =]

[DavidRandallCurtis]

Thumbs up my friend. And OMG--there are two ducks that look just like the ones in the opening photo of this video--right outside my window as I type this!!! :P

(Great writing on this--faved)