The Geese

this is for random acts of killing, not for food..i am well aware that wild meat is healthier, but hate killing as sport.

 

 

The Geese

This morning six geese passed the river's edge.
A lovely morning till a shot rang out.
Then four geese rose and turned a compass south,
while one flew in a circle over death.

A lonely call was pleading from its beak.
The sound one makes when something is too hard
to comprehend or utter in a word.
Then all was silent on the cold, blue lake.

When I walked down to witness from the trees,
the long bent neck, the wing that drenched with blood,
I saw the wild simplicity of love.
A grieving mate that could not bear to flee.

What is it in the foolishness of man,
to halt a life, then hurry on again?

 

 

 

Reviews

[LJW]

Very visual, very compelling, very telling of the type of human who sport kills.

[Jibey]

Powerfully sad - maybe the last line was not needed.. the scene you painted said it all. Less is more, the sielnce on the cold blue lake was loudly eloquent.

[Mark]

I lack the hunting gene, Phoebe, for which I have always been grateful. Living n Texas now, I am surrounded by people who plan their lives around when this or that season opens, be it Football, Wild Turkey (Muzzle loader), or Deer (Bow), and am thus more an outcast today than I was in Junior High. This lovely poem echoes my bewilderment at why supposedly civilized people (not men only, by a long shot!) (pun intentional!) would spend $1200 for a gun, $40 a box for shells, God-knows how much for leases and travel to and from them, and a variety of other expenses I have no ken of, to say nothing of interminable hours of cold, wet boredom,to eat a goose that they could have gotten at the supermarket for $30!