Migration

We drove north from Seattle for two hours
to see them, geese traveling from one faraway
place to another. Evening approaches early
in January, we turn down a side road
and follow the long field still wet
from afternoon rain. The sky is clearing
and clouds gather into piles of wool,
freshly shorn, tinted pink then lavender.

We see the gathering of hundreds —
a blur of down and beaks and webbed feet.
One single goose pushes up from soft
earth and lifts into the air, wings wide,
    then another
       and another
          and another

We have stopped now along with a dozen
who have also come here to pray,
to let ourselves be lifted into the darkening sky,
our mouths have all dropped open,
a silent Alleluia erupting
as we imagine the trust in invisible pathways
and currents which carry them onward
as soon as they yield their bodies to the wind.

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This poem also appears in the January 2022 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 87, No. 1, page 19). Click here to subscribe to the magazine.