Geese
Daye Phillippo This morning, I walked out through the wet unknown to listen to my husband's bees, hive behind the back pasture, new to us this spring. Geese beagling their approach. I looked up as the pair emerged, side by side, into full view just over the black locusts. Heavy birds, flying so low you could almost feel the weight of their bodies in the lift and fall of their great wings, moving as if in slow motion. Low, over the white pines, so low it seemed the needles must brush their breasts, and talking in honks, talking, syllables of dactyl and spondee intermingled, so that one heard them inseparably in what seemed agreeable discussion about bodies of water (so many this year) and nesting places, or perhaps hopes for this year's goslings, number and trait. Do they anticipate? Only they and God know. . . . This coupling through the chill air, this solemn drink offering poured out over the morning and the woman below. |
About the author:
Daye Phillippo is a graduate of Purdue University and Warren Wilson MFA for Writers. She is the recipient of The Elizabeth George Grant and a Mortarboard Fellowship for poetry. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Shenandoah, Natural Bridge, The Comstock Review, The Fourth River, Cider Press Review, and others. She lives in a creaky, old farmhouse on twenty rural acres in Indiana with her husband and their youngest son. |