Joe Peacock

White Duck

 

Ibsen and Yeats did not sing of you,

white homeduck quack,

as you cross your cold creek

this evening of the snow.

 

The park is in its night and all its pines

in one slow peace

can watch with me

through distant park-light haze

and feel the warmth

your silent calm proclaims.

 

You notice me

as you continue on.

I beckon you,

but like my breath that frosts

and falls into the deepness of the park,

my calls are caught and muted by the cold,

the night, the shadows in the snow.

 

In jest, or mad

beyond my reason to explain,

hard-packed wet with ice

and early winter’s grass,

I hurl a snowball at your head.

 

Your wings fill with flaps of furious air;

you rise up on your orange-quack feet

to honk into my eyes, and climb

dark stairs into the gloaming sky.