The Flight of the Geese

The skeins of geese unravel in the sky;
Their busy chitter-chatters ebb and flow.
I lift my head to watch them as they fly.

Before the arctic snows on hillsides lie,
Before the wintry gales of Svalbard blow,
The skeins of geese unravel in the sky.

I hear them first, a distant calling cry
Through chilly evening’s after-sunset glow.
I lift my head to watch them as they fly.

As autumn’s golden-olive leaves drift by
And hedges gleam with haw and hip and sloe,
The skeins of geese unravel in the sky.

And flock by flock, stretched out and wavering high,
In search of sheltered loch and shore they go.
I lift my head to watch them as they fly.

The trailing threads of summer whisper-sigh
But long before the pinch of ice and snow,
The skeins of geese unravel in the sky.
I lift my head to watch them as they fly.