Grandpa Morgan and the Mud Puddle Mallards of Beaverton Oregon by Bob Langill

It’s wet. It’s always wet this time of year.

But this year is different,

There’s ducks, ducks everywhere you look,

In every ditch,

    Pond,

        Puddle,

            Or flooded field;

Any place with three inches of water

Has at least two ducks.

The ducks have descended

And claimed all this wetness,

Confident, unruffled, and indifferent,

Indifferent even to this line of people

Standing in the rain, waiting for the bus,

As they sit in a ditch,

Scarcely a foot away.

And they are indifferent to my sadness.

Seeing them makes me sad

Because I have no one I can tell,

No one who’d be interested.

Channel Two News would hardly headline

“DUCKS FOUND IN WATER . . .

Details at eleven”

But if I could still write to Grandpa Morgan,

He would care,

He would find it interesting,

And he would draft his reply,

Crafted in his Copperplate cursive,

And he would take the letter,

And fold it,

And put it in an envelope,

And write my name on the front,

      Turning it into a work of art,

      Something to be treasured.

But not a scrap remains to me now.

So I am sad

While the ducks are indifferent

As they sit in the ditch,

Scarcely a foot away.