I am fond of ducks: they are a species that does not rest culturally stagnant, as you can see below. Unlike myself, for without the Internet I could not figure out what royal and historical event had taken place 209 years ago, today (which I arbitrarily declare to be duck calling day in K-Town), in an important French cathedral. Do you know the event?
See also Evening Walk.
Georg:
Your post reminded me of a silly little poem that I wrote many years ago - I hope you don't mind if I share it here:
On Chickens and Ducks
When I was a child, my mother asked me
if I would rather be a chicken or a duck;
Forty eight years later, I know the answer.
A duck can fly for hundreds of miles
when called upon to do so.
He can swim for days when the water is high.
And (rolling, swaggering)
walking is as easy for a duck as ... well ... walking.
A chicken, conversely, has to have a running start
just to get airborne for a few feet -
and then "flight" is composed mostly
of falling and flapping.
No chicken on the planet will go willingly
into water more than an inch or two deep -
the ability to swim
is not found in his program.
Chickens can walk - but not with a duck's style;
A chicken walks with a sort of fusty, futile panache,
like he just stepped in his lunch.
Finally, a duck looks like a duck -
chickens just look like large, poorly-engineered birds.
I think I'll be a duck, Mom...
Regards, and Merry Christmas
Posted by: Ed Stevens | 12/04/2013 at 03:25 PM
Thank you for contributing this observant and sagacious poem. I like it a lot. It's realistic and true, and unlike many things that are realistic and true, it's also funny. With sentiment to it, as well.
By the way, the event alluded to above was the Coronation of Napoleon I:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronation_of_Napoleon_I
Posted by: Georg Thomas | 12/04/2013 at 04:16 PM