Missing the Forest for the Ducks

"Don't you think," said my neighbor,
While eyeing the ducks on the lake,
"That they show how God means us to live?"
She meant that the white ducks had banded
Together at one end of the lake,
And black ducks in a bunch at the other.

What she failed to see, in her rush
To grind a lesson from glimpsed
Postures of water fowl, was that
the ducks and lake were set in
A wider mosaic, more rich than
We can see, intertwined.

Use a wider lens, draw back yet more,
And see a forest round the lakeshore,
Still more to see the towns and farmsteads
In patchwork pattern, rivers ribboned.
Look through time and see prairies emerge
From coral reefs, shallow inland seas.

So how well I answered my neighbor,
"Oh, my yes! I think they do indeed."

Betsy McKenzie
July-August, 2011

This is the first poem I have felt like writing in quite a long time... Hooray!