It is a world of birds here in the morning. Busy magpies with sticks. Occasional duck couples settle into the lake. A thousand starlings fill the empty branches of an enormous poplar. When I look up at the tree again, and the black birds have all departed without a sound, without a trace. I am stunned. I grieved the whole year my last child left home. When I dream at the change of seasons, it is often about them as little children, as they were then, sleek and wild, our life full of surprise and struggle. In the dreams we are together again, as if they arrive and depart from me regularly due to the energy and excitement of the equinoxes. All the seasons of my life circle around and I can be all ages.
There was a thrill last Fall, driving along Cherry Creek, my hands on the wheel, traffic rushing the other way, my eyes watching the flock of wild geese flying overhead. It was more than one flock, there were twenty, then thirty or more geese. Oh, my, here they come. They are honking the familiar uh-whonk, uh-whonk. Even more. And more. They kept sweeping along, crossing the flood plain at fifty feet. My head was halfway out the window, twisted upwards, peering into the heavens, and I was starting to slow traffic behind me. I stopped counting at a hundred. I glanced at the oblivious drivers passing, lighting cigarettes, their windows up. Look everyone. They're back! Look now! I almost began honking my horn. Listen to them. Please just look! I remember how I felt when their feathered underbellies, their horns honking, their wide winging and careening confluence graced my day, opening my mind from its tight nucleus of pettiness to the fabulous expanse of the wild world. I felt lonely for the people of Denver, the ones who didn't notice them. At that moment I envied the families of geese for their very familyness. I was a lone human being, joyful in their presence.
The first time I noticed Canada geese flying was an October several years before. My daughter Dana had just entered college, so I sold our Victorian home near City Park and bought a simple, large, inexpensive townhouse for myself. I was smoking a cigarette on my tiny, concrete patio, resting from unpacking, surrounded by a privacy fence and the top windows of my new boxed neighborhood. The geese appeared suddenly, and it had the same effect as later on the day down by Cherry Creek. Taking my breath with them, they soared over, not thirty feet above my head, forty or fifty geese en route to New Mexico, honking at dusk. Throughout that autumn I would listen for their arrivals, and run out on the balcony, the patio, the driveway, anywhere, anytime--toothpaste on my lips, or laundry detergent in hand, nightgown, glasses or no glasses--just so I could feel that sensation when flocks fly over: I hear you. You are beautiful. Take me with you.
When love is new it is like wild geese skimming the ground. Once I fell in love with someone I shouldn't have--like that, out of the blue. It was the season of endings for me. My father had died the month before, and my world was starting to shift on the diagonal. There was something about the shape of neck and the way I felt completely safe: a deep need I fell into. I remember standing in the naked dark facing out the bedroom window, watching the rain fall on the pines in streetlight. It was a kind of magic sprinkling over my life, entirely elemental and transient.
Today when I searched for the Canada geese, I returned to the place where I raised my own brood--in the neighborhood near City Park. If they were anywhere they would be there among the mallards and the blackbirds, the cattails, the joggers, the drug dealers. I've seen them congregate there for over twenty-five years--not flying really, but swimming, eating, sunning in the park, where I'd steer my toddlers away from the goose poop and onto the gravel of the playground. I circled the avenues around the barren park until I found one flock, only ten geese, grazing the sports field directly north of the Museum of Natural History. They were one whole team and a coach, feeding on the brown grass of the infield between first and second base. Geese prefer the wide open spaces where they can keep an advantage over their opponents.
These ten compact, well-proportioned geese are small, maybe ten pounds each. I have a heavy cat at home, just about their size and weight, which gives me an idea of what it would be like to hold one close to me, to carry it around the house showing it my things, feeling it relax over my shoulder, trusting. Canada geese appear to be gray, an impression created by the shaded scrims of neutral grays, browns, whites, and blacks. The feathers are smooth, as if someone had just combed each goose and sent it outside to play. They have long pointed bills for eating, and a snowy bib under their chins. Their necks are very long and black with a white chin strap at their jawline, giving them a dignified, uniform, slightly military carriage.
I am bundled in goose down myself this morning, plus fleece pants, a baseball cap, dark gloves and glasses. I woke early to the click of furnace igniting, feeling the warmth of the down comforter my son Chris gave me for Christmas. My cats lay still like three piles of furry need and hunger staring at me on my old country bed. But I dressed quickly and went out in the March morning to sit in right field pretending to ignore Canada geese, trying to appear non-threatening. The geese have had me under constant observation since before I got out of my car. The sentinel goose, its stalk of a neck straighter and higher than the others, scans the field with a three-quarters range of vision. Ignore me, I think. Imagine I'm a squirrel. He continues as sentry while the others feed. The eating is intense. They seem to peck and pull at the grass repeatedly forty or fifty times per minute, then rest for thirty seconds or so. Several sleek feathers float on the tips of brown grass, preened and discarded, fletching the park. I tug on the bill of my cap, scanning the ground like a goose. Indeed, even though the lawn looks entirely brown, there are short blades of new green growth all over the area, and under my knees. I could lean over to bite them off with my own teeth, if I only had a bill that was long enough and sharp.
Colorado Boulevard traffic continues steadily just fifty yards to the east. A service road between the museum and the zoo is mostly empty. An occasional car or light truck passes. I know a man is behind me in the parking lot; I hear his engine turn over. I am having a hard time keeping my mind on geese. They seem to fade into the cityscape along with the asphalt, the yellow brick, the steel posts. I remember the Kelly green uniforms Dana wore to play soccer with the Leprechauns over in that field. The humming of the traffic and the constant feeding gestures of the birds make me sleepy in the cold morning air. To observe is to keep my mind on the goose. But my mind slips into memories of last night, when Chris came over for dinner. I'm drawn back to something about the way he sliced a hunk of fresh bread. My mind is re-writing my life, like it always does when loosened. Given enough freedom, it would keep mixing memory with perception, present me with innumerable versions of my past, and then convince me by its trickery that each and every story was the truth. Exuberance can be my downfall, since I can convince myself of the rightness of almost anything if I can work up enough interest and excitement about it. Since for now the geese have wrested my imagination away from other possible interests, it becomes the geese that I both fear and desire.
Now they look neither fearful nor desirable. They have taken positions five to ten feet apart from each other, covering the outfield methodically, like the teeth of an infield tractor smoothing the ground between innings. I move ten feet closer to them, very, very slowly.
One of the geese-- I have no idea which one, since the only ones I can begin to distinguish are the sentry and its nearby mate--begins to lead the others from this baseball diamond to the next. This happens very calmly, quietly; they are lining up single-file like first-graders crossing the field, heading to the edge of the infield in the middle diamond.
Today the lead couple takes turns, one leading the flock, and the other one bringing up the rear. They have their long feathered periscopes up, scanning as they go. This couple has mated for life, as I have done. Several times. Geese literature is full of romance--the courting, the calling, the defending, the harmless fighting, the mounting, the language before, during and after love. I read a story about Duke, a gander whose little family of goose, two yearlings, and two goslings was shot down one by one from a hunter's blind in a Wisconsin field adjacent to Heron Marsh. Duke flew high and fast and barely escaped massacre himself while listening to the cries of his daughters below. Duke circled around and returned after dark, honking loudly. No response.
Uh-whonk! Uh-whonk! Silence.
Uh-whonk! Uh-whonk! Only the background of bullfrogs and cicadas.
Duke stayed in that refuge the entire winter, forgoing the tender grasses of the south for acorns so that he could remain near the piece of sky where he last saw his mate. He stayed alert, sounding the distress cry of separated, lost, and widowed geese: oh!-oo, oh!-oo. He was attuned to the sound of all birds in his desperation to hear the responding call of his familiars. The gamekeepers named him Duke, and fed him grain all winter. oh!--oo, oh!-oo.
The next Spring Canada geese returned to the refuge, but Duke kept to himself. One day he saw a lone goose swimming, and although it was not his missing mate, he replied when she called to him: Uh-whonk! They swam together that day, and he watched while she fed, and she watched while he fed. The gamekeepers noticed they spent most of their days together: "Looks like Duke has found his Duchess," they remarked. Seeing the geese together so constantly also relieved something in the men. Duchess led Duke on a walk to the other side of the marsh, where ducks dove and emerged from the deep lake with fresh tendrils of cattail roots clinging to their backs and their feet. The ducks shook off the vegetation, a delicious meal for the two geese, who floated steadily a short distance behind them.
The other Canadas continued north, eager to begin their Spring nesting. Duke had walked and swam and fed with Duchess, but, since he had mated for life with a different goose, he had restrained himself from mounting her. He would wait until they flew north together. One morning he flew high, calling to her to follow him, while hundreds of geese all over Heron Marsh were lifting into the skies. She called back to him, flapping her wings furiously, honking and honking, until she was exhausted from the effort. She never left the ground. Duke watched her from above, circling around, as she turned from him and floated towards center of the lake to rest. He called to her again. This time she moved towards the edge of the water, walked out of the lake, again beating and shaking over and over, calling to Duke: uh whonk! uh whonk! But Duchess could not fly. She carried a piece of metal deep in the tissues of her chest, and although one wing was wide and open, the other was contracted next to her. When she attempted expansion, the wing would fail.
Duke left Duchess there that day, and didn't return until Fall. The men saw a lone Canada circling several hundred feet above the refuge, as was his way, as he always did at first, and they knew it was Duke because he was so high and alone. He called down to the refuge, unable to spy her among the thousands that had landed. He called again and again, until the goose he was looking for, the one who waited for him, floated quietly around a mound of bulrushes, her eyes scanning the sky where she heard his call. Uh-wonk, uh-wonk uh-wonk, she repeated, beating her wings enthusiastically in the water, splashing, calling his attention to her. Within minutes, she heard his low short grunt, as Duke planed down and settled in beside her to stay.
When love grows cold it is like an invisible wild goose silent and circling. There is a man is Wisconsin who fell in love with me because, he said, I was not like the woman back home. He said I listened to him without criticism, or grasping, or expectations. Then he lied to me once; so I packed his bags for him, without criticism, or grasping, or expectations, and dropped him at a the sign marked "Departures," so he could catch the next flight out. What exactly happens at times like that I do not know. He is a good man, really a very sweet man, and the truth is I could have loved him back. I see myself sitting in front of a cup of cold coffee with tears rolling down my face. I see him not knowing what to say. I see him wanting to fix it. He married the woman back home and quickly regretted it, which he wrote to let me know. Now he calls me long-distance whenever business takes him out of town. We never really know how much time we will have together.
Geese usually fly in tandem, one resting on the curve of air behind the other one's flight. Geese find City Park every Spring and every Fall, where they mix with the local Canadas, and stay for a day or two or three to eat their fill before moving where their instincts direct. Human history is part of their history in Denver. Canadas choose to land in Denver during their migration, in part because other Canadas reside here year round. The presence of others in a place is one way a high-flying goose decides where to land to feed. They conclude, as most travelers do, that where others have found safety, water, and food, they can find the same. It's like choosing a restaurant in a strange town by the number of cars lined up in its parking lot at supper time.
Why did some geese decide to make Denver their home? Until outlawed in 1935, one woman raised Canada geese to sell them as live decoys to hunters who, without the live decoys, were unable to match their own wits against the intelligence of the geese. The decoy Canadas would attract flocks of migrating wild geese. People exploited the strong family ties of these birds by separating mated pairs from their young. The birds would begin calling to each other: a loud peeping of lost goslings alternating with an alarmed honking cry of the parents.
Thus the distress would attract wild birds from other flocks as well. After this practice was banned, the descendants of the decoys and the descendants of geese injured in these killings, became the local non-migrating population who remain year 'round in the generous and open parks of Denver. Today if a local goose is separated from her goslings, and she calls to them in her panic, she can expect to hear in reply, a rapid series of light, soft notes--wheeoo, wheeoo--the coos of contentment sounded by goslings to express their relief at being found. I remember homesickness as a child as a longing so full of dread and disorientation that to spend the night two blocks away from my mother was physically painful. The only relief was to hurry home, with no spoken explanations, and fall asleep to the canned laughter of the 1950s, my mother's favorite shows on the TV downstairs. Now I don't know who I really feared for, my mother or myself, since the emotional distinctions between us were weak in those days. Since my father worked nights, and since my older sisters had married, now if I slept over at a girlfriend's, my mother was home by herself. She never complained that I left her alone, or even hinted that I should come home early. But there was something in the tone of her voice, the quality of her breathing, that let me know that really she'd be much happier if I was home with her. And I would no longer be homesick--that sense of unending loss and displacement.
When my son was an infant, I placed him carefully in his green carriage and wheeled him to the store, where slept there while I shopped.
Attracted by shoes in the next department, I moved away from him and for the next five minutes I forgot I was a mother. Then, remembering, I rushed to him--certain I would be punished by an empty place in the carriage where he used to be. I felt alarm, grief, shame--at the fragility and randomness of human error--to lose something so fundamental to your life in such a casual and final way, a way that could cause someone to raise the question of whether I should be trusted with the task at all. Imagine then having developed in your life a strong sense of direction and belonging, and suddenly losing yourself, the home you return to.
Today I hear a lone helicopter chopping above City Park. Unseen birds calling from somewhere to the west. A truck downshifting. Seals barking from inside the zoo. The heavy equipment generator humming. The piercing cry of a peacock. Ten silent Canada geese eating peacefully in a park in the U.S.A. Suddenly, another flock of geese circles fifty feet above. Ten more Canada geese calling from above me! The sentinel replies to the calling goose. They circle again. But, of course, they see me, and circle away from the baseball field in the direction of the lake. They are flying high, running reconnaissance, scanning the skies for safe feeding grounds near the locals. I asked one expert who has been studying wild birds in Colorado for over thirty years how to tell the migrants from the locals. "That's pretty hard," he said, "Honestly, lady, I have no idea." I am guessing then that these geese flying high above me are probably early migrants, having departed New Mexico for an early nesting in Alberta or Saskatchewan. They are stopping here to rest and to feed before continuing their flight north. I like to think they are the ones most longing for home.
I focus my attention on the Canada geese feeding on the lawn. I count twenty-eight. They are feeding in the same areas, passionately pulling the new grass up by helpless roots. I cannot tell if there are now three flocks or two; but from the way they are grouped around the lawn, either theory is plausible. I find out in the only way I can: I get up. Immediately three goose heads shoot their full vertical lengths. Three sentries are on duty, and I conclude there are, in fact, three flocks of Canada geese on the lawn west of the museum in City Park. I turn to step away from them and hear three honks behind me; I keep going and leave the question open, as to whether they are confirming my finding that they are three flocks or objecting to my departure.
The Canada geese spend half of their lives arriving and departing, skirting climate and food supplies in both directions. They depart Canada in early Fall each year. Those that fly over Colorado gather in a staging area near Calgary like thousands of troops assembling for a mission. They converge to follow one of twelve migration corridors, each one 30 to 50 miles wide. The goal for the geese is not only arrival, but survival. From the heights of the sky, they search for waterways, the most likely indicator of new vegetation growth. They prefer the young green vegetation of early Spring, and grain, when they can find it. Like all travelers, they must combat fatigue, hunger, disorientation. And in the Fall, the geese are all under fire. Wild geese are careful and rarely make the same mistake twice. Once they have witnessed the slaughter of their own, or been pipped themselves, if they survive the aftermath of it, they will likely avoid that killing ground for the rest of their lives. Survivors go where there is refuge from the gun.
The Canadas that fly over Denver are the Highline Population that breed in the high plains of the corridor that runs along the east side of the Canadian Rockies, across Alberta and Saskatchewan, into Montana, Wyoming, and ending in the marshes of New Mexico at the Bosque del Apache refuge south of Santa Fe. They are three kinds: Western, Great Basin, and Giant Canada Geese, and, if they survive the journey, they will remain south until Spring. If feeding drives them south, surely sex drives them north. They sense the vernal shift in the angle of the earth's relation to the sun, and the geese begin departing in small flocks, and at a more leisurely pace than in the Fall. Often the yearlings join other flocks, as the Canadas begin their flight north to the birthplace of the mother goose, who returns to nest in her own brooding ground. There they will mate again, and she will lay five or more eggs, and incubate them with her body, while the gander surveys dangers, threatening any comers with his strong, long neck, his extended tongue, his horrifying hiss, and the display of his daring wings. In the short summer months they will raise the goslings to young geese, spend a month molting, all of them flightless while they grow new feathers. Then just in time for the Fall chill, new growth and full-fledglings prompt them into the southern skies.
Almost every state in the union witnesses the great migration. The magical navigation of the geese is a result of their uncommon strength and range of vision. They can recognize landmarks and read the paths of waterways as they fly, travel by starlight at night and by magnetic fields in cloudy weather. With tail winds they may easily fly forty or fifty miles per hour 100 feet or more above the earth's surface. I asked my expert how long does it take them to get to Denver from Calgary. Days? Weeks? Months?
"Well," he said, "That's a tough one too. But I can tell you this. There was one time when I was down near La Junta and some of the boys there kept in touch by short wave with the boys up north. They'd call down in the Fall just as soon as the geese took right off. This one time they got the call as usual, but there was a terrible storm near Calgary, high blowing winds, rain, cold, and all the geese took off in it. Headed south. They were all very worried about them." He paused. "You won't believe this, but the geese were in La Junta the next day! So that's what they can do when they put their minds to it and have a good wind to carry them."
Today the newly arrived flock lands east of Ferril Lake, where they have a postcard view of the boathouse, the downtown skyline and brilliant Mount Evans. Spots of frost on the grass seem to puff up and then melt. The sun sends winter luminance over a circular collection of brambles in a flagstone courtyard where yellow roses reign in summer. The new flock did choose to land where others already were. Thirty geese are now feeding in this open area west of the museum, where once I met someone else's husband secretly for lunch. One Canada looks up at me and sounds a soft low, intimate little grunt . He is very handsome; I decide he is responsible and strong, the marrying kind. He continues eating, and every few steps emits one low, steady honk in my direction. I see what I assume to be the wife come running to him from behind me. She is only slightly smaller, does no honking while they eat, and even though she could--and often does do it as well--she lets him do all the sentinel work for the entire flock.
Since geese are rarely alone, almost always at least in a couple, and often traveling in extended families of other geese, communication is paramount for both individual and group survival. It is by their honks that you know them. When they talk, what do they say? The low, short repeated grunt I was hearing, is one mate calling the other, "Come, come." Researchers have classified the lexicon of the geese into ten comments: hissing at threat; honking to advertise one's presence and to greet a separated mate; the kum! kum! kum! grunt I had been hearing this fellow make; a loud, prolonged, snoring sound peculiar to the male and directed only at his mate; the after-sex snore, light and brief; the scream of pain when bitten; distress due to separation or attack; loud peeping when lost; and a rapid series of light soft notes made by lost goslings when found.
"What if there be no more goose music?" naturalist Aldo Leopold wrote, expressing his fears of the destruction of the natural world in our time. Imagine the silence in the great expanse of history and geography.
Historically, ancestors of the Canada geese emerged fifty million years ago, when mammals were only beginning to appear on earth. Geographically, today the dappled blue expanse of water and land on a map of North America is Canada, where the generous lakes and snaking rivers of the North provide safe harbor for the birds, where they can mate, sleep, incubate their eggs until the chicks pip. Imagine the migrating hordes of the past and the future converging to darken the sky, circling the West, lower and lower, putting out their webs, braking with their wings and surfing along the water, now folding their wings, now floating together becoming one goose. Now hear a low short grunt, as a second goose planes down and settles in beside the first.
A portion of this essay was published as “In Flight,” in Empire Magazine, Sunday Denver Post, Oct. 1996.
Copyright Jacqueline St. Joan, 1996.