By Marie-Louise Meyers

Geese triangulate, a pair drops out of the rank and file,

heads down to the pond where generations have spawned.

The wise ones continue, what foolish enterprise,

only to become ice-bound, still reconciled to the task at hand,

slipping and sliding along as I do all spring long on their feces.

I resent their interruption to my thought stream, still 

under the hood of winter’s mood, fears grounded

in their defiling, I wind up the alligator in readiness

to chase the offenders off our sacred boundary lines.

I ship it off the dock while it skitters

and glides as they do but without the resolve to penetrate. 

The geese so anxious for spring to arrive,

let nothing deviate from their task at hand, 

needle-like claws dig in while water spills out

bridging the gap between winter and spring

while the fake alligator is in a stalemate

when the rope binds it to its fate. 

Too little or too late are my ministrations,

for without gun blinds, Nature finds a way to propagate

and fill the pond for generations to come.