Something Beautiful

I saw something beautiful today.

It was a woman feeding ducks. This was in South Portland, where Trout Brook empties into the cove, just beside the supermarket. These ducks stay there all winter, huddled on the ice. But now they were gathering around this woman like school children to a beloved teacher, and she was bending over and dropping bread into their upturned beaks, making sure not one of them went hungry. She was saying, "Not you . . . you've had yours . . . you . . . and you . . ." And the ducks were quacking eagerly as if to say, ". . . me . . . me . . . me . . .me . . . me . . ."

So that was my something beautiful. Oh, and the gulls! The gulls were circling watchfully right over her head, just the way they circle a fishing boat. Maybe ten or twelve of them, a whirling feathery vortex in the air. I should tell someome!