Geese left behind

No quilting is getting done, a batch of other things need doing but I'll get back to my nearly done quilt soon. Meanwhile here is my paper pieced Canadian goose. I've shown it before, he's an illustration for the poem I felt inspired to write this week.

Going South?

Only two now, out there,
Early morning on the lawn,
Mates, if one believes the romance
About geese mating for life.
They arrive early and quietly now
As if they’re a little embarrassed
That they’ve dawdled here
When their companions left two weeks ago.

During the summer more than thirty
Arrived each morning whooping
Like a Comanche raid war party.
Most stalked the grass, some took turns
Scouting, heads erect, eyes brightly watching.
Only mildly perturbed if Joe rushed
Flapping a towel or clapping hands
-- a single settler against the tribe.
He hates the landmines they lay,
Sticky worms of poop
Fouling [fowling too] and fertilizing the lawn.
Some squawk indignantly and waddle away
Like broad beamed matrons leaving a quilting bee.

Next door Ed and Margie dawdle like the goose pair.
They can’t decide when to leave for Florida this year.
Ed keeps tinkering with the car,
Margie makes soup and zucchini bread.
They like the crisp days of autumn.
Perhaps they ought to coop up those geese
And deliver them to a Delaware corn field.
Old people and old geese cling to the familiar,
Need a nudge to do what’s good for them.