Indian Summer

I stand here between summer and sweater, unsure. I stand in bare feet while the wild geese fly, on empty beaches, on green lawns, in warm sun. I’m caught empty handed, without bug spray or boot, in this uncertain space between done and next. I see zinnias fade and woodpiles grow, and a bay without boat, and a day without name.

I hear both gull and goose; each calls their invitation. The gull cries “Come Back!” and I yearn to circle ‘round and sleep on a sunbaked rock, but time has told me I could get stuck in a June day waiting, while seasons pass and I grow older in place, having gone nowhere; just staring at a sky winged with wishes.

The goose calls, “Let’s go!” and I feel an anxious urge to join the great productive V toward a shared destination. What relief to hurl myself away from this unsure in-between; to migrate toward a certain purpose; to drift on the wing of another; to be carried away by the ancient instinct to belong.

I stand with nowhere to go but toward becoming. I was carried here by June days and dropped from the beak of a bird to arrive at the threshold of my own creation: in bare feet while the wild geese fly.

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