The Goose 🪿

an original poem

Betwixt the reeds and midnight sky
Where shadows dance and currents sigh
The Goose with feathered crown holds court
Too wild to tame; too tame for sport

First thunders forth the Ostrich, sovereign of the plain
"You'll never pick up speed unless you stay on firm terrain!"
He scores the earth with taloned toe—a boundary stark and clear
"A bird must plant its legacy where certainties appear."

"The soil favors steadfast hearts
That never waver, ne'er depart,
Our laws are etched in ancient stone
What's proven true must stand alone!"

The Peacock proudly swaggers forth, adorned in jeweled light
"This realm rewards the splendid, son—why keep your plumage white?" 
"Beneath my wing, you'll learn the art of what your worth might be..."
"You'll scorn the skies when you command what lesser birds can't see!"

"For what is beauty, if not shown?
What truth exists, if not in stone?
Come join our measured, stately dance,
Where nothing's left to fickle chance."

The Goose emerges from the marsh, adopts their grounded stride,
He stumbles past them awkwardly, resentment in his eyes.
His webbed feet can't find purchase on the sun-scorched, rocky land;
He snaps at Peacock sharply: "I'm no swan at your command!"

The Sparrow twirls in grace adorned by feathers autumn-brown,
She pirouettes on currents, lightly landing in his crown.
"These earthbound fools know nothing of the rapture of the sky!"
"Where thoughts drift free and formless, and the beautiful can't lie."

"Let stories bloom and fade like mist,
For what is truth that can't be kissed?
Each dusk's revision, dawn's new tale.
God only knows what's past the veil..."

The Falcon wheels in tightening gyres around the Goose's dome
Sharp-eyed (less sharply taloned), sans a nest to call a home
"The weak call freedom dangerous—I call it sovereign right!
What good are wings that never test the boundaries of flight?"

"The wind remembers victors' names,
Forgotten are the weak and tame.
Why build a nest? The world's my bed.
I'll feast upon your crown instead!"

The Goose spreads wings still damp with lake, too burdened yet to soar,
(His flight a leaden metaphor for what he's fighting for)
The Sparrow laughs, "You're tethered still to waters calm and deep!"
Then gracefully she tumbles down toward Falcon's waiting beak.

He hovers, wings a thunderstorm, as feathers drift below,
The elegies of longings he will never truly know.
"Too wet, too slow," the falcon taunts, "too anchored to your home."
Then feasts upon the Sparrow's dream that freedom means to roam.

The Ostrich sneers with cold disdain: "You skyborn fools still fall!
"Your wandering hearts claim everything, yet never own at all."
The Peacock's gaze holds something like a gleam of sympathy:
"Such wasted grace! Your gifts dissolve when scorning certainty."

The Goose slips through the nightfall to the lake's obsidian glass,
Where whispers from the drowning deep still beckon him to pass.
Beneath the surface something shifts—half-memory, half-dream—
A crown of feathers, autumn-brown, where nothing should be seen.

His ripples paint a palimpsest of seasons waxed and waned,
A tapestry in starlight that no wisdom has explained.
The lake—that patient confidant—reflects without a word
How distance blooms from tenderness when echoes stay unheard.

The currents whisper riddles as he drifts through dusky deep—
Of vessels meant for pouring out, of harvests none can reap.
His wake inscribes no answers, only questions curved in light,
While somewhere high above him, hungers fade into the night.