Autumn Flight

Now the wild geese are going over,
Clanking their chains on the windless sky,
Over the cornfields, over the clover,
Shouting their wild exuberant cry:
"Come with us, come with us---come."
 
Silver and gray, the wild geese wings
Lift and spread in their miracle flight.
Music fills their haunting cry
As they speed against the encroaching night.
 
They shout a message as they go,
Deciphered for every beast and man.
"Heed the season's farewell call
Take to cover while still you can."
 
They are calling,
And I, with no answer shaped in my mouth,
Stand where the painted leaves are falling,
Watching them disappear in the south.
 
Disappear from my sight and my hearing,
Going to who knows what far land,
Straight as an arrow, and not fearing
The journey ahead. .. .
 
Silver and gray, the wild geese wings
Beat in rhythm in miracle flight.
. . . A poignant music their clarion cry
As they speed against the encroaching night.
 
I lift my hand
Bidding them to stay their avid going
Across the wide and chartered track,
Calling to them, and yet well knowing
That only the spring will bring them back.
 
Wings in a wedge against the sky,
On and on I saw them fly;
Spellbound I stopped at the mystic sight . . .
Wild geese making their southern flight.
 
How can a mortal doubt God's plan?
Faith enough here for any man,
Watching the blue October sky,
Flame-touched leaves, wild geese on high.

[ Author Unknown -- submitted by: Hart Dowd (hsdowd@telus.net) ]