What Do Geese Know?

by Jacqueline Jules


Geese cross the road
as a group, blithely unaware
of cars stopped and waiting.
 
Why do creatures capable of flight
waddle, one webbed foot at a time,
no hint of hurry?

On the other side, they seek
tasty morsels in the grass
with great satisfaction.

What do they know
that I do not?

Could it be that flying
is not as necessary
as I’ve always thought?

And maybe I could stop
flapping my wings and try
walking across the traffic
like the geese, without
ruffling a feather?


* * * * *

Jacqueline Jules is the author of Manna in the Morning (Kelsay Books, 2021) and Itzhak Perlman's Broken String, winner of the 2016 Helen Kay Chapbook Prize from Evening Street Press. Her poetry has appeared in over 100 publications including The Sunlight Press, Gyroscope Review, and One Art. She is also the author of two poetry books for young readers, Tag Your Dreams: Poems of Play and Persistence (Albert Whitman, 2020) and Smoke at the Pentagon: Poems to Remember (Bushel & Peck, 2023). Visit  www.jacquelinejules.com