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Lynn Hoggard
RED-BILLED, BLACK-BELLIED, WHITE-WINGED TEXAS WHISTLING DUCKS
They’re ba-a-a-ck on the pond again,
more odd and noisy than any bird around.
Standing in clumps, slender and erect,
all facing the same direction,
pencil-skinny necks held high,
they resemble misplaced meerkats,
their fussy chittering
conveying much more ’tude
then anything their stolid mallard
neighbors have to say.
In spring, they fly in from elsewhere
and stay while the weather’s good
and the food holds out.
After that, they vanish.
To us, a deep puzzlement, a wonder,
offering one more reason
to check our haste
in thinking we understand—
or even fathom—the dazzlement of this world.
About the author:
Lynn Hoggard has published eight books. Her poetry has appeared in more than one hundred peer-reviewed journals in the United States.
Image: Summer Night Ducks Lifting by Bruno Liljefors (1860-1939). No medium specified. No size specified. 1901. Public domain.
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