calm descends like fresh rainfall,
and so too does the gaze of a cuckoo
upon an unguarded duck's nest.
Mrs. Cuckoo, an experienced hustler,
took out a deposit on the vacant nest.
One egg would cover the cost,
and she'd be reimbursed in time.
The Tufted duck hardly noticed
her eggs now numbered three.
Even with her sun-glow eyes,
she overlooked the imposter in her brood.
Three days before Easter, the imposter hatched.
He set about his morbid task
and turned on his nest-mates,
rolling them like pebble-skinned boulders
into the waters of the pond.
And so the portly cuckoo chick stat
in front of a species-blind duck,
demanding food from his foster mother,
a prize for his brazen crimes.
But his foster siblings were in luck,
they were found by a concerned Mallard duck.
He took them into his nest,
and reversed the cuckoo's curse.
They hatched amongst the mallard's clutch.
He told the tufted ducklings the woeful truth,
and they knew where to go when they heard
an alarm-clock call from across the pond.
The ducklings set out swimming, their first of many,
across the still waters to reclaim their nest.
The cuckoo chick was feasting on pond-weed,
and failed to spot the results of his blind-spot.
The quacking and flurry of feathers did not stop
until the ducklings forced their foster brother
across the grass and into the hedgerow,
where he waited for the return of his true guardian.
And so the ducklings greeted their confused mother,
harmony restored by the edge of the pond,
while the Easter cuckoo bides her time,
waiting for another nest to be left unguarded.
(And we're off! Seeing as it's Easter Sunday, what better way to celebrate than with a poem about eggs. Not all of the poems this month will be of this length, but now it's started I must keep up the momentum. See you all tomorrow with the next installment!)
