Goose Glory

They are up so high you barely see them,
their sound a wash
that is but a small part of their myth:
a chance, a dare
that suggests they are not really there,
yet presenting all together as one
in a dream or vision
that involves innumerable decisions. 

Nothing you need to obey,
just a new experience

beyond everything you know of yourself:
you are simply free, 
up there moving wings, making calls 
for a silver instant 
before crashing back to mere earth
amid traffic jams, pigeons and gulls;

an experience you will never forget
and for which 
you are forever grateful,
but cannot describe,

can’t even begin to understand
why you were adept 
to receive it:
that, too--in a word--was a gift.

And it wasn’t the geese who gave it
though they were co-givers. 
It was something else,
something you yourself were wanting
and it wasn’t greed,
but the desire to understand

through another party’s experience:

perhaps the best description of a man.