Keeping vigil...

The day I wandered by a mallard keeping watch over his dead lady duck I sat down beside him and cried. The tourists walking past seemed to understand my tears, but did not share them. How could they be so blind to his overwhelming loss?  

He tried -- as I approached -- to rouse her as if from sleep.  A dream she would not return from.

I think of him sometimes, when I see mallards pecking away at the grass alongside their mates as I did today.  I hope that he is alright and that the time I spent beside him in vigil for her made him feel less alone.  We forget that love is as pure and pervasive as the air we breath.  

That it extends to all living beings.  Who -- like us -- feel joy and pain and understand loyalty.    

I was worried that he would starve there doing all he could to keep her safe.  I stayed with him for well over an hour until it was truly time for me to go.  Walking away, I turned back and saw him fly down to the other ducks in the river.  I knew then that he had heard my silent prayers.