Ducks at Fiordland National Park Visitor Centre, New Zealand, 07 Dec 2011.
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, or waddling
Sailor-like on the shores
Of ponds, or paddling
– Left! Right! – with fanlike feet
Which are for steady oars
When they (white galleys) float
Each bird a boat
Rippling at will the sweet
Wide waterway…
“Ducks” is a poem by Frank W Harvey, which I learnt in Secondary 2 – with such great fascination, I never forgot the lines. The complete poem is at allpoetry.com.
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