sonora2sonoma

Waiting for the geese

camera in hand

great idea I had

 

They always come through

each evening, about dusk

enroute to neighborhood bodies of water

wherein to assemble their nightly flotillas

 

They would make lovely photos

flying by, thought I

That’s why

I went out, camera in hand

to wait for the geese

 

They make lovely whooshing sounds, I recalled,

as their wings slice through the air

when they come gliding by

each evening, about dusk

 

Swooshing by

in perfect V formation

like they learned it watching videos of the Flying Angels

sailing headlong over the Golden Gate Bridge . . .

Life imitating art

and destined in my inner landscape to be

held digitally accountable

 

If I’d paid them much attention

I might have given more notice to the almost militaristic precision

with which the geese performed

their nightly flyby

each evening about dusk

 

When, as if they had been drilled by Mussolini himself

they would glide swooshing overhead

like nothing could ever stop that train

from arriving at its destination

with a precision

that made time itself seem more urgent

and all else less so

 

Or so it seemed

 

Until just now

when I, camera in hand

went out to wait for the geese

the goddamn obviously not Italian fascist geese

who stood me up

who smacked me in the face with the pie of presumption

smothered in assumption syrup

and speckled with strawberries

(thank God for the strawberries)

the unconcerned, migration-minded geese

foreign nationalists with naught but a passing interest

Canadians, to be specific

who did all of this

without shifting a claw,

redirecting a beak

or

even lifting a feather.

 

24 September 2015

Tim Konrad