A Moment with the Geese
John Brantingham
A Moment with the Geese
I still had the flavor of pear in my mouth when the bridge arched us above the thin part of the lake, the water iced over. Fishermen had dragged rigs out, drilled holes, and waited in little clusters of red and yellow anoraks and tents here and there. Annie said, “Look.” Two geese who’d stayed behind for the winter flew with us for a moment.
That was reason for celebration, so I bit into another pear and thought about fish in their dance of survival below and the people above them, and us, arching for a moment with the birds.
John Brantingham is currently and always thinking about radical wonder. He was Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks’ first poet laureate. His work has been in hundreds of magazines and The Best Small Fictions 2016 and 2022. He has twenty-two books of poetry, nonfiction, and fiction. He is the editor of The Journal of Radical Wonder.