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Lift
I hear some geese
way high above the house,
and take it as a signal I should
give the weeds a break,
straightening up to watch
their raucous progress
stitching across the sky.
It’s May and they’re heading north,
but their noisy vee seems like
the shake-down run of a new team—
exuberant and slightly ragged,
happily, loudly, running drills,
all that rah-rah energy of a new season.
The lead goose looks back over
his or her wing as if to yell
at the kids on the bus, and veers a little,
doing this. Her wobble’s copied precisely
all the way out the right side of the vee—
and last goose whipsaws, like the last kid
in a game of Crack the Whip.
According to the Scientific American,
scientists still do not agree on how to describe
the basic principles of lift, what keeps
planes in the air. If I spoke Goose I could help
them investigate, but I can see from here
it takes a lot of practice.
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About the Author: Dan Overgaard was born and raised in Thailand. He attended Westmont College, dropped out, moved to Seattle, became a transit operator, then managed transit technology projects and programs. He’s now retired and catching up on reading. His poems have appeared in Santa Clara Review, Sparks of Calliope, Across The Margin, The Galway Review, Shark Reef, Willawaw Journal, As It Ought To Be Magazine, Canary Lit Mag, Allegro Poetry, Triggerfish Critical Review and other journals. Read more at: danovergaard.com.
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More by Dan Overgaard:
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Image Credit: Digitally enhanced image from The natural history of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands:. London :printed for C. Marsh [etc.]1754. Courtesy of the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
As It Ought To Be 