When the Geese Go

Written on a blue paper sky,

late autumn sentences are spelled out with twigs,

punctuated by small, black birds.

A sketch of leafless trees,

colored-pencil straight,

line up in shades of gray and brown.

Tales of a winter hillside,

an ice-skimmed pond,

geese listening for their cue

to close the book,

leaving silence and snow

behind.

Witness

An early morning walk as the sun rises. A placid pond. Four geese silently floating. Then a great clamor from water and sky, a large bird of prey flapping out of a cove clutching something in its talons, a pair of low flying geese screaming behind it, wings beating double time. They fly one above, one below the bird of prey. As the three wheel about, the talons release their treasure. Something falls amid the floating geese and splashes - an egg, a fledgling? I stare into the sun and cannot be sure.

As if it does not matter, the bird of prey flaps toward land and perches high in a pine. The pursuing geese speed away, back to the cove. The geese on the pond circle and talk, circle and talk. I am merely a witness. I walk on. When I return half an hour later, the geese on the pond are still talking about it.

A Little Autumn Poem

autumn morning

how can ordinary words

describe the sunlit undersides of geese

or how the swamp maple 

in the first blush of dawn

thrusts an implausible pink trunk

into the sky?

exactly which upper

and lower case letters will allow you to

feel the bite of the first frost

on your carelessly bare feet

skipping through the wet fire

to the sound of syncopated honks?

hours from now

unless these observations are

fixed on the open sky of the page

who will understand how your

shadowed footprints melted

into the dying grass

or how the great birds were swallowed

by the rising light?

Yesterday, Tomorrow

My day started with a walk before breakfast. Almost all the songbirds have departed; the mornings belong now to the crow and the jay. Several crows rose in a black cloud from the field as I passed, yelling and scolding as they settled into the branches of a large oak. Overhead three geese winged their way into the sunrise. Their undersides turned silver in the light.

Across the pond the trees are changing their green dresses for brighter colors - red and orange and vibrant yellow. They stare at their own reflections in the water and dance when the wind blows. Chipmunks are busy in the underbrush. One races across the road in front of me, his cheeks bulging.

It is good to have a day with absolutely no responsibilities. I walked until my stomach made my thoughts turn to food, then retraced my steps. Once the breakfast dishes were cleared and the floor vacuumed, I gathered up the dozens of catalogs that had accumulated while I'd been on vacation and sat on the outdoor swing to peruse and dream.

An afternoon nap after lunch seemed a good idea so I stretched out in the sunshine and dozed. I ignored the weedy gardens, the unpainted radiators, the cupboards and fridge and windows in need of washing, and idled away the afternoon hours with a good book and another mug of tea.

The day ended much as it began. I took a walk. Along the way I set free a hundred milkweed seeds. The geese returned from their foray into the cornfields. This time the setting sun turned their bodies to gold.

The light leeched slowly from the sky until full dark hid even the closest landmarks. Now the moon rides silently amid the stars and my bed beckons.

Perhaps I shall repeat today tomorrow.

Geese

Over and over they flock to the pond,

veering over the tree line to splash down,

one and one and one, until the water

is awash with feathers and wings, 

bills and wild eyes; heads dip below 

the surface, water pearls flash in the sunlight,

sharp cries pierce the blue until

the wildness pulls you in, until whatever you were

eons ago wants to fly, to soar, to cut the air with sharp

wings.

Today's prompt: Try a single sentence poem. These single sentence poems must be readable, make sense, and have deeper meaning that gives them a reason to be. You might strive for those basic requirements Galway Kinnell thinks a poem should have:  creatures of the world, beautiful language, and psychic weight.