"The Ambiguous Duck"

In the Land of Ping, there was a slightly purple Lord,
Who claimed to have a duck upon a shelf.
And fearing that his rivals might expose him as a fraud,
He sometimes had to be the duck himself.

The Lord would often travel to exotic, foreign climes,
Whilst carrying a brightly-coloured sack.
When asked about its contents, as the locals did at times,
He'd smile, before ventriloquising "quack".

A spy was sent to find the duck, and so, dressed as a lake,
He hunted, armed with reeds and mere acuity.
The Lord just smiled and said, "my child, you've made your first mistake,
_Never_ seek the Duck of Ambiguity."

The years passed, and, one day, the Lord was lying close to death,
He whispered to his court, "I leave to you..."
And then they saw he held the duck; he saw they held their breath,
The duck politely coughed and said, "err... Moo?"

After the somewhat dubious effort for Clare's card earlier in the year, I tried to write something a little better for Emma's 19th birthday, back in 1999. The title is still to be decided, though.

I didn't find out until a year later that there is a book called "The Story About Ping" which tells the tale of a little duck. Spooky, that.