It was while walking in the park
with David that some two dozen
geese flew past us overhead

And both of us recalled
and shared a moment when
we'd seen and heard the flocks
of wild geese passing in their tens
of thousands through the Klamath flyway

What had struck David most
was their sheer number
and then being told
that what he'd seen accounted for
half of the species' worldwide population

For me the memory of what
I saw and heard stays with me
like a vision the great flock of geese
passed so close overhead the sound
of beating wings was even louder
than their cries and lasted
for what seemed an hour
though only minutes by the clock

And by the time they'd flown
into the distance
I was free of all
the painful thoughts and feelings
that had promted me
to drive those fifty miles
out to the Klamath lakes

But why are we so moved
by the abundance of the wild
the Serengeti plains with their
vast herds of wildebeast
Alaskan salmon rushing
in great schools
upstream to spawn
the snow geese passing over
in what seems an endless stream

Is it that we're stirred
by ancestral memories
of a less sedentary life
a freedom lost with farming?
or is it that we sense
how fast we're losing
that abundance
the disappearance of the wild
the planet's sixth extinction
and knowing that it may
take us with it as well?

Or is it what it's always been
something intrinsic to our
human capacity for joy
our sense of wonder witnessing
the grace and beauty of the wild
the world of animals
and of the wild geese flying over
in their journeys
north and south