Winter Geese
Now that the past is greater
than the future’s long, I wake
listening through the flush of
white spring to the brightening:
to the ceilinged morning of
the shuttered pond, selvage of
shagged bank, the ducks in their cold
dreams and the clean sycamores
and the winter geese driving
home, riding the sky over
crisp pines, the underbellies
of them, and the wind thick with
hooting; if you where you’ve gone
can no longer see the dawn,
I who have been watching hard
will remember for you the
morning broken to things, the
gelid cheek of water and
the frozen spaces, whistling
air and then the cry of wings.
Becky Kennedy is a linguist and a college professor; her work has appeared in a number of journals and on Verse Daily.