Geese Gather

by Richard Dinges, Jr.

Geese gather on pond’s
low shore, gabble
their morning’s gossip
and squabble about
proper space, some
necks stretched long
and low to prepare
a joust charge, others
stretched high on guard,
until an unknown
threat, someone who
breaches their unseen
border, sends them
as one into a garbled
clear fall sky, to wing
away, over walls, in their
annual flight toward freedom.