Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘geese’

After

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 2, 2026| 6 Comments »


 
On this day after
my country bombed
a girls’ school
across the world,
part of me does not
wish to meet the day.
But just after dawn,
I wake to the relentless
honking, honking
of geese returning
from far away
to make a home again
in our yard.
I want to rewrite
yesterday so every girl
who went to school
also came home
to her family,
so every mother and father
woke this morning knowing
their child was safe in their bed.
I am so filled with horror—
we killed them—
I don’t know how to rise.
But the great noise
of the geese returning,
that harsh and strangled sound,
pulls me into the world
to meet whatever the day brings.
A goose wanders past my window,
regal with her long black throat,
proof that life goes on.
Even when we can’t imagine how.
Even then.   

Read Full Post »

Practice in Being Present 

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 18, 2025| 4 Comments »


 
As it is, I am grateful for the snow today,
though yesterday I reveled in the warm air
and clear blue sky that felt like spring.
Today still feels like spring, but with snow.
The geese still wander the field on foot,
a thick white layer gathering
on the wide gray platforms of their backs.
The swallows still soar and swoop
in tight formations, unbothered
by thick flakes of snow. The red-winged blackbirds
still trill. It seems only right the heart
should still practice how to fall in love,
no matter the weather. I am thinking of
how yesterday Wendy said of herself,
“What, did I think nothing bad would
ever happen to me?” and how just saying
this out loud helped her stay present—
less the story of herself, more herself.
I’m clear it does no good to wish away snow,
just as it does no good to wish away grief
or the tyranny of cruelty. So when thoughts
of grief and fear roll in like a squall,
I try out Wendy’s line.
What, did I imagine terrible things
wouldn’t happen to me? To the world?
The geese are sliding now into the pond,
the snowflakes disappearing
into dark water. With no effort,
I fall in love with the ripples
the geese leave on the surface,
a momentary story of where they’ve been.
How quickly that story disappears.

Read Full Post »

How

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 17, 2025| 12 Comments »


 
 
The pond ice gone a single day,
and already the wild geese
have returned, filling the open water
with riotous honking. Even
the backyard feels like a teaching
of how every emptiness invites
something to fill it, if not feather
then feeling. I think of how
in my most lonely moments,
some strange beauty has wandered
into my vision or woven its singular
song into my ears and I can’t help
but feel infused by life, the way
a trickle of water slowly—
almost imperceptibly—
will eventually fill a vast basin
till its water spills out the gulleys.
Perhaps you’ve felt it, too,
when you’re barren. Void of hope.
Then. A pink cloud.
An unruly clamoring of geese.
Still that barren, hopeless feeling,
but also, there it is, a single green tip
of garlic planted five months ago
that finds its way up to the sun.

Read Full Post »

The Words I Want to Embroider into Her Hospital Gown

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on October 20, 2023| 15 Comments »


Thank you for helping her meet
this day, this night.
Though she needs you now
just to take a sip of water,
she was once a volunteer firefighter.
If you were grieving, she would
bake you sweet bread.
If you were struggling,
she would leave a gift at your door
with a kind letter but no name.
Thank you for being the one
who arrives to help this woman
who always rises to help another.
This is the way we guide each other,
like the geese who change leaders
at the apex of the V when one gets tired
or sick. Thank you for flying ahead today.
The distance we must go is long.

Read Full Post »

Springing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 17, 2023| 18 Comments »

All fluff and down,
the goslings bumble
in the damp green grass
and whatever was hard
in me softens and whatever
was clenched becomes loose
and I give in to the unruly joy
of watching baby geese
just learning to move.
How many other small moments
of triumph do I miss?
Oh heart, remember this.

Read Full Post »

The Call

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on April 26, 2023| 4 Comments »


 
 
Dawn, and the geese announce
their landing on the pond—
and though the reluctant body says sleep,
the heart rouses to attend their arrival.
So many awakenings seem to happen like this:
when I feel least ready, least willing, most averse,
something demands I rise—
something strident, insistent, wildly alive,
saying, Now! It’s time! You’re here.

Read Full Post »

The News

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on March 16, 2020| 6 Comments »

IMG_0329

 

Just as I had settled into doom,

I heard the wild call of the first geese of spring

come screeching through the window.

 

I leapt up like a woman desperate

for good news—leapt up and ran to the window

in time to see a pair land on the pond,

 

splashing against the water. They quieted

immediately after alighting. And then,

there was only the sound  of me watching them.

 

How graceful they were in the pond,

the water wrinkled behind them, as if their arrival

were the only news, the only news worth telling.

 

Read Full Post »

One Urgency

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on August 5, 2018| Leave a Comment »

 

 

waking to the strangled song

of geese, they insist

now is no time to be asleep

Read Full Post »

Gaggle

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on May 10, 2017| 2 Comments »

 

 

 

at first light

the sound of geese

enters my sleep

between heartbeats

 

perhaps it’s stubborn

to call it music, perhaps

we all long for the world

to sing us awake

Read Full Post »

seven haiku

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on January 24, 2012| 2 Comments »

those wild geese
edging the clouds, my thoughts fly
beyond their wings

*

just one more row
I think, and knit one more and think
just one more row

*

the night pressed
its darkness into me, what
could I do but open

*

these ears
go on a long walk looking
for bird song

*

while no one’s watching
I trade all my molecules
with the night

*

did someone sow
all those stars, or did someone
trip and spill the bag

*

walking at two below
both questions and answers
come out as clouds

Read Full Post »