Snow Geese


Oh, to love what is lovely, and will not last!
What a task
To ask
Of anything, or anyone,
Yet it is ours,
And not by the century or the year, but by the hours.
One fall day I heard
Above me, and above the sting of the wind, a sound
I did not know, and my look shot upward; it was
A flock of snow geese, winging it
Faster than the ones we usually see,
And, being the color of snow, catching the sun
So they were, in part at least, golden. I
Held my breath
As we do
Sometimes
To stop time
When something wonderful
Has touched us
As with a match,
Which is lit, and bright,
But does not hurt
In the common way,
But delightfully,
As if delight
Were the most serious thing
You ever felt.
The geese
Flew on,
I have never seen them again.
Maybe I will, someday, somewhere.
Maybe I won’t.
It doesn’t matter.
What matters
Is that, when I saw them,
I saw them
As through the veil, secretly, joyfully, clearly.


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Snow Geese