RSR ~ POETRY
MIGRATION
Thin skeins of geese
pull against the low sky.
This is the season of
blood in the sunsets.
This is the season
of long whistling
embraces of wind.
It is the time of
lengthening shadows
and thick mists on big waters.
I am listening to the
wishboning of wings
in the cool air
and my blood stirs to a pull
stronger than my own history.
I am thinking of migration today -
my life a pause,
a gathering of strengths,
a tensing of muscles
and a blind instinct for flight.
I am thinking of the
raw moment
where intent becomes movement;
where everything
is irrevocably changed.
What wild defiance in me
knows that it is
time for migration?
What servile restraint
keeps me here
even with the geese
singing down my bones?
What tips the balance between the two?
Geese do not waste effort
in cogitation of
such matters.
Migration is not a choice -
it’s the way geese live.
Absolute choice
is a trick of consciousness
taught by the fear
of losing what
we are leaving.
Migration is a spiral -
not a line stretched between two points.
There is no leaving
that is not also a returning.
Geese swim in the liquid sky.
The wind laps against me.
Exuberant goose chimes
jangle the autumn afternoon,
fading to the south,
and in silence I follow.
R.S. Russell
Migration ~ NuPastel & Charcoal, R.S. Russell