In the Season of Geese

It Happens This Way …

Since it’s that time of year when flocks of noisy geese migrate across our skies, I thought I’d reach back to a poem I wrote ten years ago. It’s still true that we see groups of them flying in one direction in the morning and flying in the opposite direction at night. And it’s even truer that their formations are more “disheveled and disorderly” than in the past. What is Mother Nature telling us about the changing dynamics of leadership that the neat metaphor of geese used to describe? And that independent female at the end? Hmmm … an image of all the strong women who have been flying high in this past decade?

Enjoy!

Finding compass

They look confused—

four flocks of geese

back-tracking routes they flew

southeast last night.

At least, I’d like to think

they are the same—

these squads of Vs,

disheveled and disorderly,

as if a pre-school child

is scribbling lines across

the jagged sky.

 

Whoever led last night

got something wrong:

mis-read the compass set

for feeding grounds,

mis-scratched the itch to find

a winter home.

The calendar was right,

but something else went wrong.

What is that common saw

about flock leadership? 

Weariness requires falling back.

The leader must have missed the sign

or snubbed the call to acquiesce.

 

Before I wrap my mind

around the science of it all,

one lone goose breaks through

the clouds, driving south-southeast. 

A day behind, she missed

their lift-off yesterday, 

tonight’s impatient flying back.

Against the grain,

a different drum,

and all such idioms

cannot explain

her unrelenting wings.

 

She’s older than the rest,

I fantasize. She’s been around

the clouds a thousand times,

knows anomalies of wind,

weather ambiguities,

the myths of leadership.

 

She doesn’t care about uplift

or saving energy to cover ground.

No wingmen or honking cheers.

No urge to lead or tilt

of head as they fly by.

 

And just as black lines disappear

beyond the Douglas firs,

she strains her neck and lowers

regal eyes—amused, I’d like to think,

by one lone raucous cheer

winging upward toward

the clean-slate sky.

From Carolyn Martin, Finding Compass (Portland, OR: Queen of Wands Press, 2011)