With Canada in the news so much lately, I took a look in Mom’s writing archives and found an interesting piece she wrote about Canada geese:

Work in Progress

I saw them again yesterday, feeding in the field where corn had grown all summer: Canada geese, a dozen or so, those wild and mystical squires of the sky who call us to joy and freedom when they fly above our eyes.

Finding them there the first time I was struck how like and unlike they were to the stone wall at one end of the field. Similar in color and body size one was soft enough for pillows, the other hard yet versatile enough to blend together in a wall. I saw the stones dug up like giant potatoes to make room for the corn. And so the earth and sky are linked anew as the geese fly down to feed and leave, replenished.

I am still trying to make a poem of this: such sharp Autumnal imagery, playing the soft against the hard, the sky against the soil, the wild geese and the landlocked stones.

air for late october
wild geese
groomed for the sky
I see you feeding in the field
where stones in colors like your own

~ Joan Vayo October 12, 1983

My parents left behind hints of their admiration for Canada geese.

This signed and numbered artwork by Morten E. Solberg adorned their bedroom wall:

When traveling to visit Mom and Dad in Madison, Conn., we knew we were getting close when we saw the exit for Goose Lane.

Meanwhile, I heard geese honking as they flew by our house in Indiana early the other morning. There’s a pond nearby, plus Swinging Creek on our property, so they have several choices for a noisy gathering place. Also, plentiful fields with remains from the fall harvest provide a filling breakfast. The geese are always kind enough to leave behind their contribution to help fertilize the next year’s crops.

Of course grandson Cameron as a toddler decided I should not call him a silly goose:

“No. You goose.”

And I am his Goose to this day.

Another silly goose? That would be Dad. I think he’s playing possum in this 1979 photo, snuggling a Christmas present from Mom.

In this world that seems to grow colder by the day, it did my heart good to see that Women’s Soccer Coach Emma Hayes uses geese as an example of empathy, support, and teamwork:

Geese always support each other. When a goose gets injured, two birds always accompany it down to the ground. Just as geese do, we must support each other.

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“Work In Progress” and “air for late october” © 1983 Joan Vayo. All rights reserved.

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