The initial impulse for this poem came at the moment described in it: I was shivering and in a bad mood when the sudden appearance of the geese lifted my spirits and evoked the awe that always rises when I witness the one of nature’s grand manifestations.

Publications: Signs of Small Grace (Pudding House Publications), Drinking Weather (Finishing Line Press), Praxilla, Buffalo Creek Review, Little Patuxent Review, and Northern Virginia Review.

Funnel

A flock of geese

funnels down the sky

aiming vaguely southward

though it’s late winter and

an ashy scrim of clouds

spits cold drops mixed

with bits of ice

that stick in my hair

while I’m waiting

for a bus far from home

and the wind slices

at my coat.

Nevertheless my eyes

follow the V of geese

until long after they

have disappeared.