There were geese this morning.
In the field behind my house.
I heard the noise first.
That cackling and squabbling
of disgruntled old ladies.

Then through a gap in the hedge
they came into view.
Sixty or so I should think.
Fat Canada geese lost in the dry fields
of Nottinghamshire.

I rued my lack of long lens
as ten took to flight,
gliding not six feet above the ground until,
daintily lifting their undercarriages,
they cleared the boundary on the Eastern side.

Ten more followed the first, while
the others waddled on,
‘til, in synchronicity, they rose
chattering and flapping and nimbly forming a line
that went clear across the morning sky

Their bodies, too heavy for the ground,
looked sleek in the currents.
I waved them off, though they didn’t see me,
aimed as they were, with their arrow heads pointed
towards their mysterious, distant, destination.