literature

Geese

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Literature Text

When the frost was still hard on the ground
and crisp
on the bitter-fallen skeletons of the leaves,
we woke to the cry of passing geese.
I started to stand, but
with one flash of your hand you stopped me.
In silence we watched them pass
through the mammoth shadows of the pines.
They traveled with nothing to hold them up but air
and their own small strength.
There was religion in the motion of their wings,
faith in their movement across the sky,
a prayer nurtured among
the cluster of their bodies.
They're not anything grand, I thought then,
not like these trees or even like this mist.
They're just birds.
But, too, they have wings, and even though
they knew they'd be okay if they stayed,
even though they knew it'd be a hard journey,
they found a way to fly, and now
they're leaving for places I'll never go.
Perhaps in that way they're grander than us all,
than anything else I've ever known.
Inspired by a photo by sparth on Flickr, and by a Richard Dawkins quote about how awe for nature can be a kind of religion/spirituality of its own.
© 2012 - 2024 apricots-and-coffee
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