While the afternoon’s chilly
and the wind’s from the northwest
it’s not quite November
nor is this Toronto,
still those ducks feeding
in the Humber River
so long ago are much like
the ones feeding today
on Lake Chipican – murky brown
waters, ice-cold on the edge of frost;
sky like solder, sun drifted
into the far, far west
over Michigan.
Soon the ducks will fly south
then return with spring’s warmth
to mate – a type of
resurrection. Our lives
also leave and return
with a final resurrection
in Heaven.
Later tonight: a clear
cold sky, every star vivid
through my leaf-shorn walnut.
Such vast distances! There to here,
here to there, impossible
to ever comprehend
like those bobbing mallards
about to embark for Florida,
the West Indies.
From “Under the Mulberry Tree”
