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18 June 2018 Goose Walking

When I was in grade school, I raised a flock of mallards, drakes, hens, and their ducklings. I had over thirty at once. If you read my poem, “Ghost Flyers,” you know that I grew up on an airport. A regional airline called North Central (later to reincarnate as Northwest Airlines) made a stop of two at that local airport where I grew up. Well, my ducks loved the little ponds tucked around and in between the runways. Typically, they flew over to the ponds and had their way. (No I didn’t clip their wings, and if you wonder why they stayed around, it’s simple: Free food and lots of it. Why fly away?) But as usual, I digress – as if this whole narrative isn’t a digression from this week’s poem.

So, back to North Central. Now and then, the mallards chose to walk between the small ponds. Usually, there was no incident; however, on one particular day, a proud mama duck and half a dozen ducklings walked across the runway just as North Central’s DC-3 was taxiing in to drop off and pick up passengers. The pilots of the hefty, twin-engine prop aircraft saw the ducks in time and put on the brakes, waiting for mama duck to finish her crossing. My father was not pleased; everybody else thought it was hoot. The above has almost nothing to do with this week’s poem except that the above story about ducks, enters the territory of water fowl, and today’s poem is about a goose. Duck-duck-goose, anyone?

Oh, by the way, I actually saw the goose of the poem’s title. She was truly walking, quite casually, down a Forest road, just as the poem says.

Goose Walking

Part 1
Canadian Goose ambles down Forest road with no pond or field near
Canadian Goose waddles along gravel way, no goslings’ beaks at her rear
Canadian Goose pads along Forest road listing left and right, for now, deferring flight
Goose alone – a gander’s absence rather strange for those who mate for life
Stranger still to walk alone in this season of procreation, hatching, learning to be goose 

The edge of summer rising sudden – humid greening, waxing wild
So, why a solitary Goose? A wrong turn spiraling through the pines?
            She chitters to herself, head a swiveling turret of inquiring
            why the car with window down has pulled up beside her 
“Who is this strange creature,” she may be thinking, “with wheels where webs should be?”

Rain-pressed roads mean everyone springs up to life after adverse winter
Even this Goose on her walk-about seems to listen to distant goose-throated honks
She cocks her white-chinned head, looks skyward, her dark brown eyes alert and bright
What reason can she have for strolling grounded under dripping pines?
Perhaps her weather forecast’s out of date? Her flight plan cancelled by galactic whim?

In farm fields of soy and corn husks many beaks gather goslings tended, eating hearty
             with heads down, rooting, flipping, burrowing chuff and chaff
Together, families cluster with their not-yet fledglings
Yet this Goose trundles slowly down the Forest path – why ever so?
These geese take a mate for life to stay and fly beside
                        Spring after spring
                        Brood after brood
                        Flight after flight
                                    together all their days and across a lifetime’s nights

Waddle waddle through the puddles, not enough to swim  
Could it be she mourns for her lost gander, all thought turned toward him?

                                               (Part 2 of this poem appears in next week, Monday, 25 June 2018)

Background:

Canadian Geese continue to live successfully alongside humans and their developments. These geese don’t seem to mind establishing their breeding bases in cities and other cultivated areas, where they find frequent food, and where predators are few. Some people view these geese as a nuisance with their feeding on crops, their unabated noise, not to mention droppings, large and widespread. The human habit of hand feeding these birds has resulted in the geese begging for food.

During the second year of their lives, Canadian Geese select a mate to which they remain monogamous. When one mate dies, some geese will find another mate. Typically, the mate that lives on may stays by the side of the sick or injured mate, even if most other geese are flying south for the winter. Also, the living mate often mourns in seclusion, and spend the rest of their lives without another mate, refusing to couple again.                                                                  

Explorations:

Exploration #1: What is your hypothesis as to why this goose is walking alone in the Forest?

Exploration # 2: Consider why some, but not all, birds and mammals mate for life, and what it is about human beings that makes this practice less than common.

Exploration #3: When you see Canadian Geese, what are our thoughts about their ability to live so close to humans?

Jack Pine Savage 


 

Comments

  1. #1: I'd guess it was hurt--or it was in molt. Either way, it may have been providence that the vehicle stopped beside it just then, as surely some meat-eating denizen of the forest was lurking near and ready to spring upon it and drag it away, its wings flapping for all they were worth, loosed feathers flying, its gurgled 'hronks' audible to only the vegetation and the sandy soil on which it was being dragged. The wheeled visitor granted it a reprieve, if but for awhile. Look for feathers next time you drive by.

    #2: Well, in my observation, it isn't any easier for waterfowl and other fauna, as I've watched squabbles--and sadly, abusive relationships as well, flourish outside our windows, and too mating for life may not be an equitable decision for both parties. They may just find themselves stuck with their stalker, who is bigger and badder than any of the competition. We've watched ganders/males seemingly punish their goose/hens for reasons that defy explanation--but isn't that true of human relationships too or am I just personifying animal behavior? Maybe hens stay with one male in particular because he's the lesser of two evils, those pesky wannabes who chase her everywhere she goes on the pond and give her no rest. At least 'Bill' looks like he could defend her ... even if he doesn't twist her tail-feathers.

    As for the healthy goose (female) that stays on with the sick gander while the rest of the flock soar south, it can be said of humans too--again sadly as statistics show according to a Spinal Cord Injury stat I read several years ago that put male mates in a pretty poor light, that historically when women suffer a debilitating spinal cord injury they are institutionalized and abandoned, whereas if men are so injured the female mate will care for them in the home themselves or by a mother.

    I had been researching spinal cord injuries because my Uncle Raymond Palm, of Roseau, MN, spent 71 years of his life in a wheelchair after becoming paralyzed from his chest down, in 1932. At one point he was the Nation's longest living survivor. He was cared for by his mother and his younger sister at home, but was financially independent because he had become a jeweler and a gunsmith, in turn, later caring for each of them.

    #3: We see honkers differently now just for that fact as we live along a wetland basin inundated with several breeding pairs of Canadian geese that come back every spring with all their kids, about March 12, give or take a day. We eagerly await their return, listening for the first one's calls as it soars over the often still-frozen creek--and more eagerly await their migration south after several weeks of trying to keep them out of our vast yard, them and all their goslings who poop and molt and feather--Did I mention poop?--to a point where, if it wasn't against the law, I'd start shooting them and use them for deer food plot fertilizer. I especially like seeing the huge flocks winging their way toward Saint Cloud and the Twin Cities to settle down on the riverside sidewalks and grasslands around Munsinger Gardens, for instance. Good riddance! At the very least open the hunting season up on them, like they do for snow geese, and let hunters blast away. Give the birds to the poor or cultures who know how to cook them into fantastic meals. They shouldn't be wasted, only controlled.

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    1. Thor, thank you so much for your lengthy engagement of the explorations that followed “Goose Walking – Part 1.” One of the highest pleasures of our little Almanac adventure is the comments on our writings. I just love seeing what my poems bring to mind for other writers.

      Exploration 1: - Your prognosis may be absolutely correct; however, no feathers to be seen at the spot where the goose was sighted, nor anywhere along the whole length of River Forest Rd. Who’s to say? If our vehicle gave the goose a “reprieve,” I am only too glad to make it so.

      Exploration 2 – Hmmm . . . I do believe you are correct about the “squabbles” and “abusive relationships.” Could it be that in the animal world these things are more ~natural, and not surfaced by selfishness and ego? Just sayin’ As far as “personifying animal behavior,” in that phrase lies human hubris, as if when we anthropomorphize other sentient beings, we’re doing them a favor by “raising them up” to human status. Then there’s the “twisting of tail-feathers.” In our youths, that was all we could think of – body parts being interchangeable. The prettiest or handsomest person got the attention while bookish types were relegated to the dustbin. (Interestingly, research tells us that the reason for all this can be found in attraction to genetic qualities, e.g., the male with the most testosterone and the female with the biggest mammaries.

      The spinal cord injury example is intriguing. Makes me wonder how often women are thrown in the dumpster when they become disabled, and how often women actually stay with their wounded warriors. Probably, some of both exist alongside the opposite of the above. In regard to your uncle Raymond, seems to me he has the better of the two scenarios. Seems like leaving financial support, however appreciated and necessary, does not hold the proverbial candle to the caregiving that his mother and sister administered. Easy enough to give money; not so easy to give oneself in service month after month and year after year.



      Exploration 3: Wow! I was right! The family that flies together, thrives together. Is it really true that all the offspring hand out with the parents? This could be quite the gathering – pretty noisy, too. How amazing, for you as well, to welcome them back each year. My only question is if offspring hang out with parents who hang out with parents who hang out with parents, wherever does it end. How many generations? Thank goodness this practice doesn’t extend to black bears, but then again, they don’t migrate.

      Finally, your closing comments about “let hunters blast away” makes me sad and a bit protective of the mighty flocks. Who are we to talk with our infestation of the planet. Geese have been here, as have most other sentient beings, a whole lot longer than we have. I say, arm the geese with poop-shooting guns and let them have at it/us.

      Thanks to Thor for expanding our thinking on the "goose," and to the Chairman for being part of the conversation.

      JP Savage

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  2. Mr Reynolds has done a fine job here thanks to his birds eye view of goose life out his picture window. It's panoramic I tell you, his view of the creek.
    Reading the poem, I thought the goose was like you Catherine: out of your usual habitat. Of course you've adapted to life in the forest and have thrived in the Northland. But the cabin a big change from your former life in the big city.
    You refer to the possibility that the goose has lost her mate. Fortunately you and Joe have each other. And long may that be so.

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    1. Hey, Mr. Chairman, thanks for weighing in. It's interesting that you see me "out of [my] usual habitat," in that I've always lived (or wanted to) in natural, rural settings. In fact, to date, the more than half of my life has been in the hinterlands. And yes, I had a life in big cities; however, every time I came back to the "country" or Forest it was like coming home. In truth, it was the cities that felt foreign. Finally, gratitude to you for your "long may that be so." Accepted.

      Not so finally - I'll be writing a longish response to Thor's comment. Because we aren't receiving notices of comments, I will address my response to you as well.

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