Tag: Muscovy ducks

Song for George



My friend, it's cliché
 but you know what I'll say,
I hope to see you again.

In time, you'll return
 on a day you discern;
I hope it's me that you find.

My dear, I'll hold fast
 to a love which outlasts
Eternity and a year.

When you fly away
 doesn't mean you won't stay,
It's only a day's goodbye.

The spread of your wings
 is the nature of things,
A growth by adventure fed.

Be safe and live free;
 I'll continue to be
Your friend, though your absence chafes.

Go roam where you will
 and I'll visit until
Love reunites us at home.

My sheer house

My sheer house is miniscule,
But here and now a lyric
Could take sublime molecules,
Make time's victory pyrrhic.

I give you this offering:
How I lived, a wish afloat
On songs of hope, softening
The wrongs which our scopes promote.

My dream to be feminine,
To see myself seem pretty,
A princess with eminence;
Pinced instead: what a pity.

I grew into depression,
My true self refused, repressed.
Desire became obsession;
To my shame I was possessed.

My own eating disorder
Bound up a need for starving,
Alcohol, and discordant,
Maladaptive wrist carving.

Death was posing constantly,
Its threshold closing around
Each moment of wantingly
Reaching, alone and unfound.

But I'm alive, shockingly,
I survived at rock bottom.
He found me worth pocketing,
Crowned my cursed head with autumn.

Before I was untethered,
Poured my puzzled blood weeping;
When he brought us together,
He bent thoughts that lie creeping.

A half-dozen medicines,
A path that wasn't direct
At last mounted reticence,
Perhaps found something correct.

We shacked up through manifold
Setbacks, yet we grew happy
Trusting plucky animals,
Our muscovy ducks' flapping.

There's still the same confusion.
Will you blame that I re-slept
My years' yearning delusion?
I've merely learned to accept.

I've lost and gained employment,
I've tossed the rains from islands 
To focus love's enjoyment;
A voice spoke above violence.

I'll never be omniscient;
So I must weather demons,
Though I fear I'm deficient.
I know my sincere reasons.

I'm not very capable
But caught a merry lifeline.
If even I'm shapeable,
Could seasons prime our lifetimes?

To mention that important
Question: what matters really?
Is self-knowledge supporting
My shelf of solid feeling?

Am I truly self-aware,
Can I duly note defects
In myself that interfere
With my health's tender reflex?

Have I built my quality
Which sadness wilted above;
Deeply lies my policy:
To keep those I call beloved.

Our Best Friends

Percy and Franklin,
I still think about you two.
May we meet again.
Talk to me Norman.
Any whisper you breathe
Makes my soul lighter.

Oh my darling George,
I'll never forget seeing
You in the preserve
Next door, (far from home to me.)
You came back with love's ascent.
Steve, what a blessing
To see you running to me
With warmest welcome.
Little striped ducky,
What is your name I wonder,
Our friend Zebra's child.
Zebra moved along
With a few of her ducklings;
We'll always love her.
Wonderful Helmet,
You most amazing mother,
Your little white head 
Reminds me of the Mama's 
Before who mothered our friends.
Edgar's soft whirring,
A duckling nipping the air:
Little things they do
That remind me of Granite.
How he loved his blueberries.

One of Many Things

I think what I adore about you most
is your compassion for creatures in need:
the softshell turtle caught in dirt you freed;
protecting the mother hens on the coast
of the pond from a rowdy drake engrossed
in his hormones; and when you took the lead
trapping and releasing to his green weeds
the little lizard found on our bedpost.

Spiders, moths, and even juvenile wasps,
you do what you can to bring them from harm.
Even when exhausted you don't exhaust
your kindness for helpless things. That's the charm
which draws us to your arms, especially
the one who needs you more than any: me.

Franklin

It finally happened, and I
Have felt the most singular joy:
Franklin, the largest of our ducks,
And I think the father of most of them,
Ate blueberries out of my hand!

Our younger ducks are still skittish,
So I simply toss them berries;
But Franklin's courageous and comfortable,
He doesn't fear the touch of this ape.
And if ever I feared the bill of a duck,
Truth reveals that completely baseless.
Franklin is sweet beyond compare:
It feels like rounded tongs when he nibbles,
Gently tickling my palms for fruit.

And not just that, though that's sublime,
He even let me pet his breast!
He held himself with the dignity
Of a wild animal, yet serenely,
Familiarly he accepted my touch.
With the backs of my first two fingers 
I softly stroked his dappled breast.

Franklin gives his mouth a lick
And holds his head up while I pet him.
I look into his golden eyes,
At his leathery, red face,
The equal streaks of black and white
Which course atop his fluffy head
And down his neck; he's so plush!

I thank him for allowing me
To feel the soft touch of his down.
He chuffs as if to thank me in turn
For the blueberries. He is content.
What an incredible creature I'm blessed
To have as a neighbor purely by chance,
This muscovy duck Franklin!

Percy’s Stretch

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.