My Duck Pond

Children seek to find a secret place

where their minds can trace outlines

for the imagination to colour in

where magic is no myth

and no story too elaborate

to be true

children seek to find a secret garden

a place that no adult has discovered

to uncover a door to days of make-believe

where they can not so much as hide

but be unobserved

When I sit on a rock by my pond

I recognise this place from my childhood fantasies

families of ducks paddle past

like a Spanish armada

and feed and swim at my feet

and I breath in so deep

because I finally found the secret door

the one I wanted more

than anything else as a child
to find

the one that led me to here

where I can not so much as hide

but be unobserved