Overlapping sounds from an open window on a seething fall morning

(another day above 30 Celsius):

the composting truck rambling heavily on a nearby street while

Canada geese carry on with their southward trek overhead, clamouring, and bound

by their hopeful objective of surviving many more migrations.

The age-old rhythms of nature and the mechanical noises

of a century that seems to have lost its way.

Who among the human migrants of the world is given

the same chances as the geese?

Whose happy outcome would you bet on?

How long will we maintain the notion that these nests

we call ours, in villages and cities,

belong to us and are our property?

The geese are not hampered by such illusions, and perhaps

that’s why, come the extremes of heat and cold, floods and storms,

they will recognize the need to change,

to adapt,

to move on. Together.