Bamboo Ducks Poem by Bill Mitton

Today I bought a Bamboo Duck
Well three, to be precise
I bought them at a roadside stall
They were just, well….kinda nice

The stall was full of carvings
sorta folkys rural things
mushrooms carved in sycamore
Moths on Beech wood, wings

Yet the Ducks they really drew me
They seemed to be alive
The colour and the markings
Their posture strong and lithe

They’re made from bamboo roots
He said, the guy who ran the stall
when they uproot a bamboo plant
These people use it all

They take the root and clean them
read the story in the shape
the size and contours telling of
the mood the duck will take

The ducks come from Indonesia
From a village workshop there
to a village green in England
where another carver sells his wears

And the beauty of this story
when all is said and done
Is that no one gets exploited
no environmental damage done




Because bamboo grows rapidly
the resource can be sustained
and because Fair Trade is organised
an Indonesian village is maintained

The guy who ran the roadside stall
played a part in this as well
He only used recycled wood
In the things he carved to sell

So now I’ve heard the story of
how they came to be
The ducks I fell in love with
Mean that much more to me