migrating snow geese
some days joy hides
easy to forget the contours of its cheek
or the scent of its shirt in the closet
some days awe is a memory
stored under basement boxes
at risk of disappearing into a cobwebbed corner
but today
the snow geese stream by
loose white black-studded Vs against
clear blue sky
and we gasp over and over
at the spectacle of black/white/blue
at the never-endingness of the drifts of white
coming in on the wind
it’s an unfamiliar abundance
that we in this time of diminishment
imperilment risk extinction decline
fragmentation extirpation catastrophe
have little acquaintance with
and the rush of wings and bodies and joy
all these beings requiring essentially nothing of us
no intervention no advocacy no sacrifice
is so welcome we blink back tears
my son says if the sky had a necklace
it would be made of snow geese
we sit in wonder
not just listening to their cacophony
but feeling it inside our skins
the collective vibration of their thousands
of hearts and synapses
the air itself trembling
at holding such tenderness
