After the rains the river has revived
filling it's bed from bank to bank
and calmly gliding
just down from where we've set
chairs on the grass
with wineglasses in hand
we sit and watch the January sun
glint off the water
the current neither fast
now slow the river seems
unstoppable in its meanering course
heading to where it empties sixty miles
downstream into the sea
while here it offers
refuge to a throng of waterfowl
Canada geese, mergansers
mallards, green teal
and look - a bufflehead
with six small ducklings
in her wake
hard to imagine
ducklings hatching out in winter
but what else could they be
these little paddlers
trailing behind a larger version of themselves
I suppose because our daughter
gave birth just two months ago
I'm more than ever taken
with the miracle
however commonplace
of motherhood
and so I take this sight to be a sign
nothing dramatic
but auspicious for the coming year
the year now well begun
with new-hatched life