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.