Imprinting! ! Poem by Seema joglekar

We are Geese, related to the waterfowl species,
Creatures of shadows &Silences, carried by
the power of a missed heart, That distances can't part,
Asingle glimpse, enough that someone is going somewhere.
That gave reassurance in the midst of empty miles& eerie nights
Flying over cities that have taken so much to build, to soar over heights.

Migrating when Autumn paces the months,
Flying with the horizon, where dreams come out & hunt.,
When the statement of agony became a hymn to a distant vision.
For whose sake anything was worth enduring, a desperate Quest for compassion.
At elevations away from the stench of emotional death.
Adding the distance of years to the distance of miles.
As the sound of water stressed the silence, carrying it into the blue skies.

Foraging on aquatic vegetation, in need of a star to sail by,
No wind carries higher than the storm in their throats that miss the eye,
On webbed short feet &straight bill, sulking perfumed hours
Unspent, with the ones you love, .always return
to where they started, endowed by some kind of cosmic flash

Clipping away sea weed &floating greens
From the floating scum we scoop the karmic cream,
On our heavy layers of down & dense plumage,
Come our dull little vanities in habit –haunted bodies.

Solitude &blue quarters, inciters & reminders of that empty ache within,
That can’t be replaced by friends, brethren or one’s kin,
Tell of an occurrence so bizarre; a bond forged at nature’s behest,
It all goes to the genetic hand we are dealt,
A quickening life when from a heart has first burst,
The first thing the eyes rest on,
Is always followed to the end of the earth,
A gosling would follow a heifer or a cat nearest to the hearth,
Imprinting is what they call it- like you & me in this birth.