W D Knoll: ‘Wild Ducks’

Wild Ducks

God! Filter-feeding, whistle-wild ducks
Take flight like trim-feathered skim-rocks;
A swung-winged go, an onward throw
That slaps, that signs off lakes below
To rise, arrowed ripples in the larger air
To gain or lose, risk vital freedoms rare.
A rise to fall, to cry life! be alive so much
They skim gravity aside in their re-touch.
Yet, in the catch-shy air, their watery wake,
Comes a longing: my soul’s too-heavy ache.

W D Knoll