Story About a Man and his Ducks

[summer_jackel]

When I was small, my mother told me
about a man she had once known, perhaps
a friend of hers from college.
A shy man, he had had such talent,
and was so bright, but he had suffered
a series of setbacks in life; the loss
of a love or career, or possibly both.

He was never the same, she said
with regret. He stayed away from people
after that, lost confidence. Retreated
to a small house in the woods, and kept
a flock of runner ducks. And then,
I learned about long, skinny, silly
ducks who run better than they swim.

He was a lot like his ducks, she said.
Such a shame about him. I listened,
but formed my own opinions, for I also kept
a flock of ducks, and do, and will persist
in doing: imagining a man who lived alone,
with his flock of runner ducks, and understanding
that he had found a path to happiness.