Gift from the Geese

Jennifer Pratt-Walter

High up, the wild geese
have pulled the rusty doorway of Autumn
closed behind them, their sharp music
a choir of deep acoustic truth.

They are calling you to listen
to the Mysteries of Passing that echo
in the chamber of your being.

Out there, Winter waits
to be ushered in. Like the geese,
wildness is claiming you
with all its colors.

Can you hear it, the russet and gray,
the cold chalk-white? Can you feel it
bite your cheeks?