Unlike Walden and its famous hermit, this pond doesn't
attract tourists, only ducks, and perhaps an enlightened
frog.

From a platform's splintered rail, looking down
to reeds bowing as Malliard ducks sail through,

my arms have become wings, my head blue-
green feathers. I'm paddling, but don't know
what the other ducks are quacking about.

With the burden of being human gone,
I am content, but suddenly hungry.
Dipped my head underwater, looking
for something I could eat; but found
only a question:

Are you a man looking down at ducks
paddling on a pond, or a duck paddling
past a man?

The oracle at Delphi was always right, but never
as first interpreted. The meaning of her utterance
lay in the structure of the riddle, and in the no-
man’s land between riddle and solution.