Plains Cree
Winter came early this year,
that's why, under my duvet,
I'm wondering about feathers,
the way some things so insubstantial,
so hardly there, can make all the difference.
I'm wondering too about geese.
Where do the souls of naked geese
go? Do they rise like red fire
from the coals, or gather
on some lonely neck of beach,
or do they, like idle pensioners,
throw dominoes on small blue tables
in the hills of Tenerife? Perhaps
they are speaking in ancient tongues
of honk and quack, about how one can adjust
to anything, make do without the fluff,
appreciate the lack of upper air disturbance
that so often fouled their course.
I wonder if they ever
want their feathers back,
or to be young geese again
on the night of their first
migration: two angled lines
joined only at the vertex.
A week ago the full Moon
that strikes the earth cold
began as thin blue air
in the distance that parted
for the V of your leaving.
~Karen McCosker
Winter came early this year,
that's why, under my duvet,
I'm wondering about feathers,
the way some things so insubstantial,
so hardly there, can make all the difference.
I'm wondering too about geese.
Where do the souls of naked geese
go? Do they rise like red fire
from the coals, or gather
on some lonely neck of beach,
or do they, like idle pensioners,
throw dominoes on small blue tables
in the hills of Tenerife? Perhaps
they are speaking in ancient tongues
of honk and quack, about how one can adjust
to anything, make do without the fluff,
appreciate the lack of upper air disturbance
that so often fouled their course.
I wonder if they ever
want their feathers back,
or to be young geese again
on the night of their first
migration: two angled lines
joined only at the vertex.
A week ago the full Moon
that strikes the earth cold
began as thin blue air
in the distance that parted
for the V of your leaving.
~Karen McCosker