Member Poem

Geese

Every year I forget - until they come,
while I’m sitting hearing the lounge
make its usual noises: the flappy tick
of a would-be-old clock, the quiet pings
and tiny lightnings of electricity
in our cyber-home, the easy presence
of applications and appliances.

The sound comes first, and how dare you
call it honking? The shared rhythm
of harmonics in thirds - all while flying
at every mile per hour in a delirious,
ragged V for victory, for valour, vital –
is music from aliens, from un-understood lives,
and this our annual chance to be touched by it.

My husband, at a concert - I thought he was asleep
- he murmured that he was feeling the Brahms
go through him, feeling the performance.
So I am with geese over our house, skein after skein,
Hundreds of birds not pinioned or eaten or tortured,
and I want to fly with them, natch.

A couple of days and that’s that,
the last sounds ringing through my head
as I worry about the stragglers
⁃ if only I could give them money
or a bed. Shoo all the planes out the way.
Fold the world and bring the hot land nearer.
Be seen by them. Be cared for.
Be part of the magnificence
so that someday I can tell someone
that it happened. But they’re gone
without me, without seeing or hearing me,
as is right - right for them.