Geese - musing on cause and effect, Long Island Poem for Sunday

Yellow Billed Loon - Summer Plumage
Carving on recycled golf club
by Bob Schiff

Claudia Sukman of Farmingdale, NY, member of The Long Island Writers' Guild, likes to write an occasional poem, like 'The Geese' we have selected for this Sunday: "This poem was actually composed on the back of a used envelope, as I sat in my car, on Fairchild Court in Plainview, waiting for the geese to cross."

We are in the midst of goose migration season - it starts in September and continues until November. 

The Geese
Claudia Sukman

The geese are walking across Fairchild Court
They take their time, each step deliberated
Measured
And then, only then,
Trod

Left
Right
Left
Again
Left
Right
Left

While the geese parade
Traffic backs up on Fairchild
All the way to Sunnyside Boulevard
Up and down the exit and entrance ramps of the east-bound Long Island Expressway

Trucks, cars, vans
RV's, SUV's
Hondas, Vespas, Harleys
Schwinns
Nikes, Adidas, Reeboks
Nothing, nothing moves as the geese cross the street

Justice delays in the Riverhead Courthouses
All parties and non-parties sit in their cars
Waiting for traffic to ease
Literacy declines at Stony Brook and Dowling as teachers, instructors, professors and students
Put their transmissions into neutral
Rev their engines impatiently

Malls lie fallow in Huntington and Smithtown while cars strain to break free and surge into
parking lots
Fingers drum on motionless steering wheels
Dance on inert blackberries
Yearn to scratch private body parts

The geese arrive at the grassy shoulder up on Sunnyside where they
Squabble
Squawk
Soliloquize
Then turn around and start back to the other side

'The Geese' by Claudia Sukman.
Reprinted with author's permission.

---

Previous Long Island Poem for Sunday - Dream, poetry, dance, music, sky, eternity - Long Island Poem for Sunday

---