Jane’s Annual Poems, 1973-2021

1980

DECEMBER SNOW, 1980

 

Do you see?
200 geese in classic variations of silhouette
just after the first snowfall,
Canadian geese at the country club
in a northern suburb of Detroit?
 
Their heads bent, their stealthy
Stepping, and a red-shouldered hawk
on top of an oak tree
near the muddy stream with the voices
of schoolteachers at a conference
having lunch behind you?
 
Voices fading
as the pains of this year
when the silhouettes of Canadian geese
high-step across the wet and heavy
first snow?
 
Don’t you love it when
they hang on their tiptoes
and flap their wings?
 
© Jane Piirto. All Rights Reserved.