The Pond

What is it like?
I cannot make a metaphor
to help you understand.
I cannot draw a line
from my life on the water
through something else--
maybe the middle of a forest
or a heron's blue wing--
to draw it closer to you.
All of the metaphors for water
have already been written, anyway.
Half of them by me.

But I can give you this:
This morning, three mallard ducklings--
females with speckled backs--
are travelling with their mother,
occasionally sipping from the water that floats them.
They are silhouettes in the slick light.
What I mean is, they are perfectly themselves--
uninhibited, sharply defined,
living on only what feeds them.

Maybe the heron flying overhead,
coming in to land on one of our docks
would say the same of us--
that we live close to the source of our lives.
But I hope not.
His face expresses wisdom.

Look at them.
Even our fanciest prosthetics--
our cars, tractors, boats, and airplanes--
cannot perform like the young mallards' wings
that let them glide onto life like that.