I'd like to tell you about this duck

That lives next door on a little pond

It's one of three that visits my yard

So you can see I've grown quite found.

To me, a duck is just a duck, but ..

JR, my son, tells me, it's a Mallard

'Twas Saturday before Mother's Day

He tells me it has a nest in my yard.

I went out to in-ves-ti-gate

In the inset corner of the house

Behind the bush and in the mulch

A place that is quiet as a mouse.

In this flowerbed I found

There on the mulch-cover ground

I saw one egg partially uncovered

Her eggs were covered with feathery-down.

With camera in hand, my son went out

The nest of eggs to photograph

You ask, "How many eggs were there?"

He told me nine.  Excited! I had to laugh.

I sent an email to my niece

To check the almanac for datum

How many days to hatch those eggs

Twenty-eight to thirty days:  they'll slowly come.

On my calendar, I kept count

Every day, I checked on this duck

I even marked and counted the days

Waiting to hatch and hoping for good luck.

Eggs should hatch by June 10th

That was the end of the 32 days

Several more days came and went

Still no goslings: duck did not stray.

My calendar shows she's two weeks past due

But still she sits and whiles away

Around her, a little levee she's built

Day and night, she sits and waits.