Winter Learning Ducks

Afternoons the sky shuts down around the swamp's warning tapes propped up with restoration piping and dirt leak fencing. We’re fleeing toward the wild, seeking the names and shapes, the same way the Cedar Waxwing flit and grip for berries tree to tree. Canada Geese are easy, they lead off down the lane leaving residue, Widgeons have green stripes and gold stripes, one American the other European, and they’re all mumbling our family phew-do they didn’t burn the kid, they can’t keep the house clean, drugs… Blink away the cold wind tears. Forget all that, only remember Shovelers have the long low profile and the long bill from studies in New Zealand, like a deep breath, we set aside work, unlimber spy the race of killdeer away from their guarding territory in gravel. Our boss didn’t try to replace us, he ducked out to a new job leaving the crime ringing in our ears like the police car roaring past. Head down, we tunnel under the high way finding the dunk and bob of mergansers and their hallowed or red heads, remarking differences when the sudden scream of honking mallards flee up river. Caught off guard, we wonder did we cause all this pain? The rise and dunk flying goldfinch happily chirping cling to the thistle, their favorite waste near the waste water ponds where all the Black River water flows for cleaning spilling into the nesting lower stages of the tertiary treatment. That’s all this is, treatment for the shock wave week riding current events on our shoulders, almost like the red-tailed hawk that screams and skims our head, rising up to the setting sun turning the sky purple and pink and bruised. That’s when wood ducks skim into view, our breath captured and then steaming undone but soon the heavens offer confirmation, blue angels with their huge oversized wings soar in pairs down as gift. We hold each other then, let screams silence, detail enriched.