January 5: Black duck

Still sick, still home, still spending a lot of my time just looking out the window, this morning I watched a single black duck make its way up the river against the current, edging around the newly developed fringes of ice on the banks, poking among the exposed stones and in the eddies. It hung out within view for a while, a dark silhouette in churning grey water framed by the sepia tones of the leaf-strewn banks and bare trees above. Then it was gone. Only the trees, dead leaves, and pale, expressionless sky remain. And me, here at the window.

Ice on the river.
Lone black duck skirts the edges,
too soon out of sight.