Grey Geese

Grey Geese

The long forgotten party

spilled out on the snow

away from the day's work, 

away from the houses,

and every winter journey

started there, where three women walked.

The first day was for cooking,

and the cleaning up after cooking.

The second day was for eating,

and the cleaning up after eating,

but the third belonged to the women

and they chose the frozen pond.

Just the three of them, leaving

behind the children tired but playing, 

the menfolk fed full and playing

with whiskey and cards in the back room.

They came to skate

but they meant to fly.

One was practical; she would always work

hard on the ice, skirts heavy, soon damp,

using her legs, pulling herself along

brow furrowed and bent to the purpose,

to make herself fly like the geese

who migrate because they have to.

The second woman was preening.

She piled her hair high, picked her fancy hat 

and her striped coat to twirl for the watchers.

Full of smiles for the performance,

she skated with show but precision, like

the geese form up in line.

The third woman was caged. She

came to skate out of her world.

She knew the ice was perfect, she knew her circles

and figure eights were the meaning

and pattern in things, like the geese know

how the sky leads away from winter.

The long forgotten party;

three women grey in the distance,

united in a vee    far out on the ice

         smiling and flying

away from the work, away from the houses.

Every winter journey started there.

January 2011

Posted for Magpie Tales #49

Photograph by Tess Kincaid, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License