MOBY DUCK

MOBY DUCK

(Being a Birthday Poem for Freeda )

Call me...fish meal!

The wind caught my yacht
turning her Nor' by Nor' Westward!

Ho!

Sunlight & water
became dancing diamonds.

My toy boat
cut redly through

the ripples
of Time

(still in my mind)  

its white sails
blossoming with the breeze

me proud & pleased

with her
manoeuvrings

until

alas she was
capsized

by a passing
great white myopic quacking duck.

Of all the...luck!

My tears & a long long stick
trying to retrieve

the shipwreck
of my joy

from the dead centre
of the pond

just beyond
my...reach.

Now not a birthday goes by
(from the man of now all the way back to that crying little boy)  

that I don't
cry & curse

the lonely seas
& the skies:

'Moby Duck!"