Ode to a mallard
There have been email volleys circulating around the neighborhood forum about a female mallard found strangled by a plastic grocery bag and the male mallard who has sat watch over her. One writes, “mallards mate for life” – and others lament “humans destroying nature” – and still others bemoan the “careless act of littering and destroying our quality of life.”
Writing about loss, about longing, about tragedy and betrayal drips off our pens … while writing about finding, and becoming, and enjoying, and someone who gives you so much joy and pleasure are so difficult to put into words, which don’t come across as trite, sappy, sugary – juvenile, pedestrian, shall I go on?
I feel the duck’s pain, to have lost love is a tragedy – and yet to have found someone you could be persuaded to love is the opposite of tragedy – it’s a sugar-coated miracle.