And the Geese

They waft in, from up and down the greenbelt

which is nothing more than

a small stream running through a big city,

water far from clear,

brambled banks contained by an asphalt bike path,

graveled playgrounds, baseball fields, parking lots.

Yet all this week,

at the dark end of dusk,

I’ve walked to where the stream widens into a lagoon,

just to watch them arrive:

waves of Canada geese,

from the manicured lawns of

the oil company complex,

the city golf course,

and thousands upon thousands of yards,

to settle here, on this quiet lens,

appearing with a crescendo of trumpeting calls,

big wings and wide webbed feet angled for the landing,

hovering

over power lines and buildings and down, down onto this circle,

alighting

effortlessly onto this small space amidst an ocean of concrete,

gliding

feather to feather, a thousand or more, on the transformed water,

one act of redemption every evening,

until ice edges the lagoon and they wing south.