When the Red Goose Wakes
By
Marilyn Dorf
The sky a pure river of dawn
and the red goose wakes, the
breeze weaving, interweaving
leaves newly turned.
In the valley a song,
with no one to sing it,
some voice of the past
or the future. The red goose
sets her wings and answering
some promise she's made
to the WILD, enters that river
of sky, neck stretched
toward heaven, maybe beyond,
tail nothing but a carnelian
nubbin fading to sunglow.
And you, stunned to a silence
the size of the world.
and the red goose wakes, the
breeze weaving, interweaving
leaves newly turned.
In the valley a song,
with no one to sing it,
some voice of the past
or the future. The red goose
sets her wings and answering
some promise she's made
to the WILD, enters that river
of sky, neck stretched
toward heaven, maybe beyond,
tail nothing but a carnelian
nubbin fading to sunglow.
And you, stunned to a silence
the size of the world.
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Disclaimer
We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2012 by Marilyn Dorf, "When the Red Goose Wakes," from Platte Valley Review, (Vol. 33, no. 1, 2012). Poem reprinted by permission of Marilyn Dorf and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.