Help Another in Need

One of the loveliest stories about birds came my way last week. I tucked it under my wing for rewriting in rhythmical form.

Just imagine: The most intimate and hardly noticeable nudges which the original storyteller must have experienced allowed her to be present at the right place at the right moment to witness the unfolding of this story.

Canadian geese have a favorite place to visit when autumn arrives as do white swans and ducks. The geese skim their way by the thousands into a harbor known as Chesapeake Bay, where they fly inches above the waves.

Families of swans sweep majestically onto shores, proud and fearless. Dipping their heads deep into the waters, their strong beaks forage into the river’s bottom for food.

Between stately swans and gaggles of geese, is there a toleration for one another? Could that sufferance translate into human terms such as live and let live?

Each year, snow and sleet, driven by wind, freeze the river into shades of slippery gray.

As the sun barely began to appear on one such morning, a lone woman was setting the breakfast table that sits in front of a huge window in her cottage. She stood quietly for that moment, feeling the chill through the panes, admiring the fragile beauty the night's storm had sculpted. Far beyond her dock and across the bay, snow laced the edge of the shore in white.

She suddenly leaned forward, the tip of her nose nearly kissing the frosted glass as she whispered, ‘It really is. There is a lone goose out there.’

Softly and quickly, she pulled binoculars from the cupboard nearby. Peering through the frosted pane, she saw a large Canadian goose sitting very still with wings tightly folded to its sides. She was amazed when she realized its feet were frozen to the ice.

The woman wondered what was going to happen to the defenseless goose. She felt her pulse quicken in mutual distress at the goose’s plight. There most likely would be a battle in plain view; the goose could not possibly survive the wearisome situation.

Then, from the darken skies above, a line of swans winged in singular formation high above the cottage. Dauntless, graceful, and free, they flew from the west, streaming steadily into the east.

The leader swan suddenly dipped and swung to the right, forcing the line of swans behind to create a circle of white. A team of four swans floated downward like their own silent feathers, skidding awkwardly on the river’s ice to surround the stranded goose.

Without hesitation, they pounded the ice repeatedly with their beaks until the goose was floating on a tiny island of ice. Then the goose lifted its head slightly. It pulled its body this way and that, and shook the few remaining bits of icy water from its feet.

It was obvious to the woman, and evidently to the swans, that the goose still could not fly. The four swans approached, and, with their beaks, began sweeping the wings and body of the goose, chipping away frozen water from its feathers and feet.

Slowly, the freed one spread its wings, stretching them outward as far as they would go. It slowly brought them together and spread them again in a slow exercise of flaps until they reached their fullest expanse and rhythm.

The four swans rose to rejoin the family that had resumed their eastward journey. Behind them, rising with incredible energy, the goose flapped in double time until it caught up with and took its place at the end of the swan formation.

The woman in the cottage, with cupped hand over her mouth watched them until they disappeared over the tops of far away trees. Then, in perfect peace, she wept.

Our constant curiosity is key
to watching what’s being created.
~ David Moorhead