Mirrored asphalt shimmers with the slick of rain
Reflecting the two bridges crossing Newark Bay
No train today, just the ghostly image of fog along the
tracks
But a deluge of traffic, bumper to bumper on the other
A painful deliberate parade of steamy medal
And overheated drivers leaning heavily on their horns
Below them, oozing between the bridges’s concrete feet
A family emerges, father and mother, with two ducklings
Leaving a swath across the rain-pimpled surface
As if they flew with outstretched wings on the water
Though the two smallest cannot fly,
Protected in the folds of their parents feathered flesh
Safe for the moment from the rush of the crazy world
Immune from the greed that seeks to overwhelm their lives
They own nothing, but what they carry,
Feathered freedom they still cannot yet express in flight
No one owes them either, though to be free is
To live in a world of constant fear
Of possessing and being possessed,
Of being caged in an existence you do not want
Wings clipped by obsession disguised as love
To be free is to be lonely
Eventually and forever
Forming temporary alliances that rarely last
Refuge against heavy rain and onslaught of wind
Protection you must abandon when you grow too old
Or they grow around you like a cage
As time and opportunity teach you
How and when to fly.
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