We Are Almost Conjurors

As in a wondrous, disjointed
Composition by Brock-Broido—

There is no world we know, without
We are only words within it.

How could we forget the spring?
We wander, after the fall,

Still somehow before winter,
Collecting scattered phrases.

From the shore we spot the corpse
Of a duck, rolled by the waves,

But, no! It’s a living duck,
Foraging in the loose rocks

At the lake’s wind-blown margins,
Successfully, it appears.

It’s like magic to see that
Raised green head, resurrected,

Lifting its bill to swallow,
Under fast clouds and blue skies

In nearly freezing weather.
We feel almost conjurors,

Having mentally dispatched
This duck we’ve brought back to life,

Unlike admirable poets
Left as phrases we magpie,

But only words like us, now,
No more foraging wet stones.