Bird Muse #3:\u00a0 The Ducks<\/p>\n
Frannie Z<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Every year I lived in Madison,<\/p>\n
I would see a mom duck<\/p>\n
and ducklings<\/p>\n
trailing along some road<\/p>\n
in spring.<\/p>\n
But it was never the same road.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
All the drivers stopped.<\/p>\n
Or, to put it more personally,<\/p>\n
each driver found it within<\/p>\n
herself or himself<\/p>\n
to push the brakes<\/p>\n
and be delayed<\/p>\n
for as long as it took<\/p>\n
the ducks to paddle<\/p>\n
safely across or behind.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The mom duck of course<\/p>\n
waddled authoritatively,<\/p>\n
as if to say, \u201cYou see<\/p>\n
what I have to guard.<\/p>\n
Grant me care.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But sometimes<\/p>\n
the ducklings closest<\/p>\n
to the front<\/p>\n
would start to rock on each foot<\/p>\n
as they walked,<\/p>\n
imitating the mom,<\/p>\n
forecasting their entrance<\/p>\n
into approved duckdom.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
One spring<\/p>\n
it rained and rained and rained.<\/p>\n
The four lakes and Yahara river swelled,<\/p>\n
then flooded.<\/p>\n
The ducks bobbled on paths<\/p>\n
they had never seen or taken before.<\/p>\n
They seemed larger,<\/p>\n
a bit angrier,<\/p>\n
flushed yet determined.<\/p>\n
They invaded, fuddled around<\/p>\n
places people usually walked.<\/p>\n
It was as if their new freedom,<\/p>\n
crafted by water,<\/p>\n
propelled them into strength.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I left the year after.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bird Muse #3:\u00a0 The Ducks Frannie Z Every year I lived in Madison, I would see a mom duck and ducklings trailing along some road in spring. But it was never the same road. All the drivers stopped. Or, to put it more…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":718,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/718"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21701"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21743,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21701\/revisions\/21743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}