-This poem reflects on migrating geese as a late summer symbol of departure and continuity, where leaving becomes not an ending but part of an ancient rhythm of return.
Their voices reach the field before,
their dark wings enter morning light,
a distant calling overhead,
that draws the eye beyond the trees.
They gather into shifting lines,
each bird held close within the wind,
not bound by road, or fence, or field,
but by a knowledge older still.
Below, the garden keeps its green,
the orchard holds its ripened weight,
yet something in their passing says,
that staying is not nature’s only grace.
So much of late summer lifts with them,
not lost, but carried toward elsewhere,
the sky made wide by leaving things,
and every leaving shaped by return.