Expectation stands in Middlecreek’s waters, it toddles In curious little hands, in Marylanders only up for the day, And the snow geese hang like freed shapes of the sky;
This lake comes alive with fluttering wings, The people around me keep their eyes close to the ground While a new and weightless thing who walks in fickle grace Stands in awe from every eye transfixed and terrified Even the infant child, reborn like of us Under what little sun 100,000 geese would allow Through flight, into a world of charcoal.
Something happened in every eye. I don’t know what gods Revealed themselves to us, or if we walked joy from scorn But none of us felt human or pain only the swirl of the birds Dancing inside one another like fire, like passion, And all the words anyone tried to say were wrong.
Could I say my name anymore and still be right? Could I call myself so separate when every heart there Stuck to a single note, and every mouth struck dumb? Could I speak beauty any longer, or had the geese Renewed the tongue a fictive beast? We never were what we thought we were All but angels afraid of floating there.