Geese in the Morning Fog
The spiderwebs were catching nothing but fog this morning--small droplets of it, beaded along the silk filaments. The spiders, hunkered somewhere against the fog and cold, could not have been happy. Its invisible trap had turned into a clear kaleidoscope, beautiful rather than deadly. How clever, I thought. How effective. Not even fog can pass through without being snagged.
Somewhere overhead, a single goose honked its way across the milky sky. I wondered if it flew high enough to enjoy the sun. There was sun up there somewhere, I knew: when I had come over the hill this morning, I’d risen out of the fogbank and into the light as the road crested the peak. Then I plunged back down into the mist.
The goose honked maybe six or seven times, plaintive, perhaps lost. I listened, wondering how it navigated its way through the fog. Then, as if in answer, I heard the frantic honks of two or three dozen other geese, calling from the river a half-mile to the west.
Just last evening, during a walk along that riverbank, my fiancée and I had watched some of those geese call in other travelers. They honked, and from the distant sky, honks came back in answer. After a minute or two, three geese swooshed over the treeline. Four more appeared a few second later, smaller than the first. This year’s goslings early grown, I thought.
Back and forth from air and river they called, like a game of Marco Pollo--honk and answer, honk and answer. We watched the first three geese arc wide over the field on the far side of the river and then circle back, their altitude dropping. As they neared splashdown, I expected loud ker-plunks and showers of spray, but at the last second, each goose flipped its wings and spread its feathers to brake, and they each touched down with the grace of a tip-toe. A minute later, the four other geese followed suit. The birds in the river paddled over to join the new arrivals.
Now, here in the morning fog, those same geese were calling in another wayfaring fellow, fogbound except for the strand of its Marco-Pollo cry that tied it to its flock.
Somewhere overhead, a single goose honked its way across the milky sky. I wondered if it flew high enough to enjoy the sun. There was sun up there somewhere, I knew: when I had come over the hill this morning, I’d risen out of the fogbank and into the light as the road crested the peak. Then I plunged back down into the mist.
The goose honked maybe six or seven times, plaintive, perhaps lost. I listened, wondering how it navigated its way through the fog. Then, as if in answer, I heard the frantic honks of two or three dozen other geese, calling from the river a half-mile to the west.
Just last evening, during a walk along that riverbank, my fiancée and I had watched some of those geese call in other travelers. They honked, and from the distant sky, honks came back in answer. After a minute or two, three geese swooshed over the treeline. Four more appeared a few second later, smaller than the first. This year’s goslings early grown, I thought.
Back and forth from air and river they called, like a game of Marco Pollo--honk and answer, honk and answer. We watched the first three geese arc wide over the field on the far side of the river and then circle back, their altitude dropping. As they neared splashdown, I expected loud ker-plunks and showers of spray, but at the last second, each goose flipped its wings and spread its feathers to brake, and they each touched down with the grace of a tip-toe. A minute later, the four other geese followed suit. The birds in the river paddled over to join the new arrivals.
Now, here in the morning fog, those same geese were calling in another wayfaring fellow, fogbound except for the strand of its Marco-Pollo cry that tied it to its flock.