I Am Watching Four Canada Geese

in a perfect diamond of flight 
slip between me and the sky, circle 
toward rest and cover for the night. 
The lake is a polished absurdity 
so they settle for the center 
of the ploughed field, spiral down, 
angling toward a breathless last glide. 
My brothers would shoot them, but birds 
whose wings have beat a thousand miles 
through immortal cold won’t end here. 
Won’t end up. They’re too smart. 
Once down, they turn into the field, 
just more dirty snow, frozen lumps 
against black sod. Their safety is emptiness; 
out there they can see two hundred yards 
in all directions, whatever tries to stalk. 
No food, though. The earth’s been folded 
in upon itself till every trace of 
last year’s grain is buried. 
Things get lost under what goes round. 
They’ll huddle through the night, wait 
to feed till morning, when wheat fields are hard 
and ice crystals glitter through the air: 
winters, they recover the value of light. 
Till then, they’ll be fine. While skeletons 
of trees etch themselves into the stillness 
and the blue world sinks toward black, 
the geese watch, sleep, wait. 
Death is not a subject. 
But dawn is what will lift them 
back into the sky.