The Little Duck

Now we are ready to look at something pretty special.

It is a duck riding the ocean a hundred feet beyond the surf,

And he cuddles in the swells.

There is a big heaving in the Atlantic.

And he is part of it.

He can rest while the Atlantic heaves, because he rests in the Atlantic.

Probably he doesn’t know how large the ocean is.

And neither do you.

But he realizes it.

And what does he do, I ask you.

He sits down in it.

He reposes in the immediate as if it were infinity – which it is.

That is religion, and the duck has it.

I like the little duck.

He doesn’t know much.

But he has religion.

-Donald Babcock, The Lyfe Poems of Donald Babcock