Lord, Love A Duck! Poem by Margaret Kollmer

I am happy to count among my friends a very dear lady who is in a constant state of awareness of the angels of this world and the next. She does very dear things; like helping people in many ways; even those who ask for a sign that their loved ones are watching over them.

So, one day, although I didn’t want to bother her who, true to say, I then knew only as a friend of a friend, I decided to have a word with her. I felt I had been alone long enough and really needed to know that my late and dearly beloved had not forgotten me altogether since his departure from this world some 21 years ago. Since everything in life appears to have some significance or synchronicity, I decided that 21 was probably the key to the other world, which allowed me to feel tempted enough to do whatever necessary to peek behind that door. Just to check him out, like, as they say.

I asked my angel lady if she could possibly see any sign of Les. (I couldn’t tell her that he was most probably in the Moth Club!)

Imagine my amazement when soon after, she phoned to tell me that something so exciting had happened. You see, she lives in a walled-in complex where it has never been known to have bird visitors and the visitor in this instance was the most beautiful, snowy white duck. Breathlessly, she phoned to ask if there was anything significant to me in a duck, relative to my late, dear departed Les.

Wow! On hearing this, I knew for sure then, that Les was around me somewhere but hoped he would just stay away a while longer until I had devoured the delicious duck I had roasted just that day in his memory. (Synchronicity again?) There was nothing he enjoyed more than a good old duck roast with crispy spuds and green peas and a good wine to wash it down. However, since he had ‘chosen’ to make himself known to me as a duck, I could hardly expect him to resort to cannibalism.

So okay, discounting the roast dinner, did the beautiful white bird appear to remind me of the days when we had all played cricket out in the backyard…and when he always went out for a duck? He wasn’t a particularly good sportsman in any endeavours but he did try!

Oh…and what about the time we were creeping about on all fours somewhere in the Cango Caves when I had turned my head back to say something to him and he noticed that I was about to bang my head on a low-slung piece of rock, and he yelled: duck, Marg, duck!

So, yes, dear angel lady. My Les is indeed around me. I know that for sure and, perhaps, I had better stop eating duck. For obvious reasons.