Featured Poem 9/30 – “Geese”

Geese by Michael Shorb

 

Just north of Valley Falls
rust mustard hue of
fading autumn
chills the marsh
last storm of
Canadian geese
stuns the flyway

imprinted engines of feathers and cries.

I wonder how they’ll
thread their way
how instincts born of spanning
northern frosts and raw
walnut air
navigate interstate
haze to pinpoints in
South American distance
zeroing back with
each unerring swoop
to splashdown
on a mountain lake
where reeds bend
mirrored in watery
reflections
of their own swaying

they and the vanishing geese
a single string
stirring
neutron dance
sifting
branches of the actual
surrounding me like
breath returning
when everything else
is gone.