February Geese Poem by C Richard Miles

Geese, I think those silent shadows were
But not the fine silver-winged skein
That passed, those several months ago
Across the main-line railway line.

Geese, not that bright-lit night-shift ribbon
In the pink-tinged dawn of morning
But this sullen flock sailed black
In silhouette against the twilight.

Geese, that did not fly thin-air high
Unlike those among that liberated throng
That frost-crisp autumn Monday
But this lot slunk rooftop low.

Geese, that rarely rose into the sky
As if too loath to leave the heat
That emanated through thin slate tiles
And smokeless chimneypots of suburbia.

Geese, grey geese, gunmetal grey
Against the dull-blue, cool-blue evening
Already grizzled grey itself with stormclouds
As if too old to live till spring.

Geese, although this fleeting flock
Did not fly as free as that fine troupe
From last September's sunshot upshot
We envied them, the other strung-out line.

Geese, we gathered like grey geese
A gaberdined line of dull commuters
Huddled in a gaggle at the bus stop
Unfree, as they, emancipated swooped above.

Geese, unregulated by responsibility
While we felt fettered by the galling gloom
Of freezing February and longed to be that line,
That bunch of blithe, unbonded birds.