much has passed between us

The last few days I have been utterly aware of the Canadian geese. Mostly, I’ve been troubled, a certain undeniable sadness that always claws at my throat when I look at them. On my way home from my parent’s house a few days ago, I saw one next to Embassy Parkway, newly dead I'm sure because his feathers were thrust about like fake cotton snow. The other geese, I thought, were on their way to mourn their little comrade, like elephants do, sitting next to the fallen thing in contemplation - even if they were being hunted or risked missing the rain season. But they didn’t. They walked close to the dead thing and then just pecked around it looking for food.

Nin said that I shouldn’t worry so much about them because their brains are half the size of an eyeball. It does comfort me some. But what helped me even more to stop thinking of geese bones occurred yesterday on my way through the valley. I was crossing a large set of train tracks that lead into peninsula and the wetlands. I looked to my left to make sure a train wasn’t coming, and that was when I saw it: a Canadian goose walking away from the road, into the wetlands, along the tracks. I imagined that he had one of those knapsacks that Dust Bowl hobos carried with them on iron trains, the ones with the stick and the bandana. Maybe it was the way he was waddling, or maybe it was because he was using something that humans had made as an advantage, but I’m pretty sure THAT goose’s brain was as big as the whole eye.