Canada Goose
Martin Elster

I feed this goose that cannot fly

but swims on the pond in the local park

with her mallard pals. Will she be lonely

when ice starts spreading across her home,

a home for Khaki Campbells, too,

plus catfish? I come every day

 

to see if she’s still there. (Someday

she won’t be.) Gaudy butterflies

and dragonflies are absent. Too

damn cold for them now in the park.

The last day of the year. Our homes

with holiday lights, though far from lonely,

 

perch on a pale blue pebble, lonely,

whirling, revolving day by day,

zipping across cold vacuum. Home:

A pond? A house? A world? I fly

in time to the earliest living spark:

a molecule which split in two.

 

Over eons and eons, too

slowly to fathom, across a lonely

globe, a planetary park

of beings appeared and perished. Day

now draws its curtains as I fly

back to the bird whose liquid home’s

 

the only one she’s known, this home

of muddy banks and algae, two

islands of leafless trees. Jets fly

trailing their contrails between the lonely

cirrus clouds. Later today

fireworks will thunder, spark

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the fire of spirits in the park

downtown. I’ll hear the bombs from home

as the birds will from their pond. Today’s

a day the pond birds revel, too—

as every day. Above the lonely

sycamores, the goose will fly

 

across this park, the cosmos, to

her home among the moons, the lonely

stars. In daydreams, we both fly.

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First published in Pulsebeat Poetry Journal

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Martin Elster, who never misses a beat, was for many years a percussionist with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra (now retired). Aside from playing and composing music, he finds contentment in long walks in the woods or the city and, most of all, writing poetry, often alluding to the creatures and plants he encounters. His career in music has influenced his fondness for writing metrical verse, which has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies in the US and abroad. His honors include Rhymezone’s poetry contest (2016) co-winner, the Thomas Gray Anniversary Poetry Competition (2014) winner, the 2022 Helen Schaible International Sonnet Contest winner, the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s poetry contest (2015) third place, a Best of the Net nomination, and five Pushcart nominations. His latest collection, From Pawprints to Flight Paths: Animal Lives in Verse, is out now, from Kelsay Books.

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