Monday 25 May 2015

Ducks by Frank W. Harvey (excerpts from to illustrate a point)

From troubles of the world I turn to ducks
Beautiful, comical things;
Sleeping or curled ,
Their heads beneath white wings,
By water cool or finding curious things to eat
In various mucks beneath the pool
Tails uppermost.

Aaah! how sweet, I hear you cry.  We love ducks.
And so do I in the right setting however, the tiny courtyard
garden at the back of the Lock-up most definately is not a good venue.


I had only popped out for a few minutes and upon my return was
greeted by two beaks and four beady eyes peering at me through
the convervatory window.  Quick, I thought, I must get a photo
of this before they fly off.

As it turns out there was really no need to hurry as 48 hours later
they're still with me and showing no signs of a pressing
engagement elsewhere either.


The blackbirds are truly pissed off with the ongoing state of affairs
as all bird feeding has been put on hold for the duration
and I'm convinced that the increased aerial bombardment of
my jam jar by the starlings is as a direct result of the embargo.

The interlopers did at one stage fly off and I heaved a huge, and as
it turned out premature, sigh of relief.  Dusk crept upon the land
like a velvet blanket and when I went to let down my bedroom blind
there they were settling down for the night beside my tiny pond.

When night has fallen you creep up to bed,
But drakes and dillies
Nest with pale water-stars,
Moon beams and shadow bars
And water-lilies.


Daybreak and they're still there!

The bastards were still there the next morning taking advantage of the
facilities having a bath and when I surreptitiously turned on the
fountain this only seemed to enhance their bathing pleasure.

WHAT TO DO?  I've spent considerable time, effort, not to mention
money on creating for myself a little oasis of calm and
tranquility and in the space of a short few hours it has been totally
"enmerded" (a rather apt expression I picked up in France) by a couple
of ducks.


The water-lilies have disappeared from view, the fountain has been
knocked sideways, my hand-picked, ornamental stones are covered
in nasty, sloshy poo, several plants are already badly damaged and
yet somehow Drake and Dilly have become (hopefully not
permanently) a feature in my chaotic life.  Well things had been
running suspiciously smoothly of late.

Time for a dip.

Back to the poem - skip to the end:

All God's jokes are good, even the practical ones!
And as for the duck, I think God must have smiled a bit
Seeing those bright eyes blink
On the day He fashioned it.
And He's probably laughing still 
At the sound that came out of it's bill.


All Things I

Am I laughing as I draw your attention to All Things I 
which is just a quick click away and extremely apt for
this situation don't you think?

jools@longdogsampler.com 

1 comment:

  1. Wonderful ducks although I do know just what sort of calling cards they are leaving you on an hourly basis. That is a perfect sampler - perhaps a bit foretelling of a future you could not yet envision - or not at the you stitched All Things 1. Does that mean that eventually, all things come to pass? I suspect that is the case.

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