Hudson's Geese

Hudson tells us of them,

the two migrating geese,

she hurt in the wing

indomitably walking

the length of a continent,

and he wheeling above

calling his distress.

They could not have lived.

Already I see her wing

scraped past the bone

as she drags it through rubble.

A fox, maybe, took her

in his snap jaws. And what

would he do, the point

of his circling gone?

The wilderness of his cry

falling through an air

turned instantly to winter

would warn the guns of him.

If a fowler dropped him,

let it have been quick,

pellets hitting brain

and heart so his weight

came down senseless,

and nothing but his body

to enter the dog's mouth. — Leslie Norris