When the Red Goose Wakes

By Marilyn Dorf

The sky a pure river of dawn

and the red goose wakes, the

breeze weaving, interweaving

leaves newly turned.

In the valley a song,

with no one to sing it,

some voice of the past

or the future. The red goose

sets her wings and answering

some promise she's made

to the WILD, enters that river

of sky, neck stretched

toward heaven, maybe beyond,

tail nothing but a carnelian

nubbin fading to sunglow.

And you, stunned to a silence

the size of the world.

Copyright Credit: Poem copyright ©2012 by Marilyn Dorf, "When the Red Goose Wakes," from Platte Valley Review, (Vol. 33, no. 1, 2012). Poem reprinted by permission of Marilyn Dorf and the publisher.