Should you have the joy of being
Around ducks in the morning or evening,
You've surely seen the way they stretch—
One leg extending backward
As the matching wing fans out.

I must have spent several scores
Of sunsets and twilights and even a dozen
Daybreaks squatting beside these birds,
But only once have I seen a stretch 
The way that Percy pulled it off.

He balanced on a single leg
And started splaying feathers out;
As I sat behind him on his left,
He seemed to point each feather at me.
Perfectly propped like a tiny scarecrow,
I didn't notice it at first.

Beginning to kick a leg out,
As if by legerdemain, from his right
The little extremity extended!
He paused: the ambiguous spinning dancer;
And stretched his toes like a black canvas.

He flared his midnight wing once more,
Kicked his foot its entire length;
Then he set it back on the clay 
And gave a little shake, ruffling
His iridescent feathers up,
Looking like a brass pinecone 
With subtle green and purple patina.

It seems so rare to me; indeed
I've never seen it before or since.
Percy then settled back down
To gaze at the sinusoidal pond.
Franklin was laid beside him, and Norm
And, further off in a shadow, George
Slumbered on the shore nearby.

I was squatting down on my haunches,
And my knees were beginning to ache.
We decided to let them sleep.
I stood up and stretched my own legs but
Not nearly as spectacularly
As Percy, the little black duck
With a dickie of white breast feathers.