Dispatch From A Distance - Enter Geese [by Cara Benson]

There is a pond at the heart of the woods down multiple hills, over more ridges than I care to count, from the church where I now live. When I think of it, the pond, from here at my home, I can feel its stillness, though of course it isn’t still, at all. Water, and certainly this backcountry collection of it, is in constant flux. What is it, then, that these pools become known as calming presences? I’ll drop the word womb here, also bodily percentages, where we come from and what we’re made of, but I’ve got other places to go in this post, so I’ll let them wash over us as I move on to how the pond ripples and drains through marsh grasses into runoff streams feeding the downslopes, all the while holding a relatively (isn’t everything) level surface.

Enter geese. There’s a pair of them I’ve come to find regularly at the pond. Surely they’d been there before, Canadian geese are what birdwatchers would call “common” in North America, but I remember the first time I became acutely aware of these particular two. The afternoon was glumly overcast, and though I’ve hiked in all manner of weather, winter being a favorite, this day my mood matched the gray and I might well have preferred working out at the gym if that had been an option. (My YMCA closed the same day New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio had his last workout at the gym, some 65 days ago and counting.) My house could sport an exercise class, but getting out every day is imperative, especially because I can, both physically and also safely in regard to virus-required social distancing, so I do.

I layered up for the walk, stuffed my feet into boots, and sighed as I stepped out the door. It’s not immediately an easy path to get to the pond through the woods at the edge of the land surrounding the church; I have to walk through pricker bushes and pick my way carefully along and over a portion of the seemingly millions of miles of lichen-encrusted stone walls that crawl the landscape in the Northeast US. The stones wobble underfoot, and remnants of barbed wire fencing lie in wait in the crevices. It’s a tricky start when I head this direction, but it’s the most direct route to the good stuff, so it’s my most frequently used entry.

Up and over and then crossing back again, mindful with each step not to trip nor trod the season’s burgeoning wildflowers, I made my way down to the first of many old lumbering roads, or just plain long ago abandoned dirt roads for early automobile travel, having first been horse routes. Before that, this was Mohican territory, but that deserves its own post (which is to come). This day, as I’ve said, I wasn’t in the best of spirits, so my attention was pulled inward, the way a tree encloses itself around a wound, encompassing it with its bark. (I don’t know if that’s fully accurate, but I like it.) I tiptoed to the sides of mud ruts, leapt over puddles, and followed along animal herd paths, all the while my vision necessarily trained on where I put my feet, and I was not a little cranky about it. About everything.

Finally my descent leveled out and I could see through the open deciduous stands the glowing of the beloved pond. I made my way around the southern wetlands draining the pool, then back up the slopes flanking its western shore (this is my favorite spot). I climbed the hemlock and white pine studded rocky ledges to a small clearing nestled in the pines overlooking the pond. Through the green-needled branches extending into my sight line, I could see on a mound of ground rising out of the water – two geese! There they were, simply standing, doing what exactly? Were they a pair? There was a third! Was it their young? When do they hatch? There’s so much to know!

I pulled my phone from my pants, aimed the video in their direction, and moved forward as slowly and carefully as I was capable of without looking where I was stepping. I thought I might catch them take flight, as surely they would hear my approach. The first indication they were aware of me was when the one who looked smaller slipped into the water to swim in the opposite direction, dragging a V shaped wake across the surface. The two remaining on the mound began lifting each webbed foot, slightly rocking, clearly exhibiting agitation (getting one’s feathers ruffled is cliche for good reason). And then it began: not flight, but the fiercest round of honking as they, too, slid into the water to paddle in my direction. Then in circles. Then back my way, all the while barking at me. Clearly, at me.

How peaceful they’d looked. How annoyed they now were, and it wasn’t letting up. Just when I thought they were done, like hiccups, they’d start up again. A good five minutes passed like this, which is a long time to be yelled at. Finally I receded, sorry to have disturbed them, though I did think to myself as their protest followed me through the trees as I made my way up the hill and out of sight, if not earshot, Enough already, I’m leaving.

I’ve been back to see the geese nearly daily. Have they laid eggs? Who is the smaller one? Where do they sleep? I have found few definitive answers, though many slightly informed suppositions, but I’ve kept at it. Over time we have forged an uneasy truce. Rather, I figured out how to move in their vicinity slowly enough, and in small enough increments, to keep them relatively unflapped. Too many steps at one time and the honking winds up, sometimes for minutes without ceasing, until I sit long enough or retreat into the woods to try again another day. I have definitely formed an attachment.

The first time I went to the pond after my investment in our relationship and they weren’t there, I was distraught. The pond seemed so empty! Where did they go? Did my presence make the spot less suitable? Were their eggs picked off by predators (there’s been both a bald eagle and a blue heron circling)? The following day, still no geese, and I was downright sullen. I slumped on a rock at shoreline, hugging my midriff against the cold (where the hell is Spring anyway). I moped, uphill, all the way home, and let me just say that uphill moping requires commitment.

I took to reading about my missing friends. I didn’t acquire any sure knowledge, but I did come to believe that they hadn’t laid eggs, or the female would have been incubating (sitting on the nest) nearly continuously. The smaller of the three is likely a Cackling goose, whose mate had also appeared. Easy for me to have been wrong, though. The only way to get a better idea would be to spend more time with them, but they weren’t cooperating. They’re geese, after all.

To stave off disappointment, I’d mostly given up on seeing them again but continued to return because, well, what else would I do? To walk is to repeat a mantra with my body. An enactment of prayer, whether secular or otherwise. The poet’s “and the wave sings because it is moving”* is a neuroscientist’s “certain brain functions improve during even mild activity” is the Buddha’s “it is better to travel well than to arrive,” though having a destination to circumambulate or achieve is plenty fine, too, if that’s what gets me going. And for the love of [choose your signifier], I am desperate to get something, anything, going (aren’t we all?).

So I ventured back to the pond. There I was, sitting slopeside on a bed of pine needles, gazing at the wind spilling jewels across the water, when I heard that familiar honking, from afar, heading my direction. The sound grew and into view they came, expertly skidding in for a landing near their mound – the Canadian geese! And as if they’d been waiting off in the trees, the Cackling geese zoomed to the water to join them. All four of them settled in to their floating repose, and I leaned back against the hill, propped on my elbows for an afternoon visit, until it was time to move on.

***

Cara Benson's writing has been published in The New York Times, Boston Review, The Brooklyn Rail, Fence, and elsewhere. Kevin Young chose her poem Banking for the Best American Poetry 2011. A recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, she lives in upstate New York. www.carabensonwriter.com.

*Philip Larkin
Read the first post in this series: Hello From A Distance. 

Comments

[Julie Owsik Ackerman]

I love these soooooo much.

[Barry Goldman]

I too found geese.

Many years ago, I arrived in Ithaca NY from NYC in the dead of winter, January 1st. The next day it had snowed, a good 5 inches. I went off to explore and walked way out of town towards one of the many (i wanted to say Fjords!) Gorges. I decided on an alternate route and trudged through snowy pine trees. Little idea where I was heading. There were no other foot prints. Eventually the pine gave way to thick hemlock. Things got thicker and darker and quieter in the snow. All of a sudden the world opened up before me at the edge of the gorge. It was wide, deep and dark. The water was a good 50 feet below me. Rushing water, Ice covering everything, primeval forces, light and dark,

I was completely alone.

Except,
On the blinding white snow,
On one patch of ice,
In the middle of the rushing water,
One lone goose,
Sleeping,
In the middle of the whole world.

[Cara Benson]

Barry, This is lovely! Cara

[Cara Benson]

Thanks, Julie!

[Michele]

This is delightful & rich. I love this story.