THE FAITH OF BIRDS

This morning as I drove to college
To teach a poetry class,
A row of ring-necked geese
Walked across the parkway
Between Old Keene Mill and Ox Roads.
I stopped in the left lane
To count eighteen birds
March past my bumper
Assured that the world
Would stop. It was I
Checking the rearview mirror
To see what traffic would do.
It was my rational philosophy
Undermined by geese refusing
To look at me in the truck.
Cars lined up behind us.
Accelerating, I thought, well
That’s poetry: a line of geese
Walking across a road
Under the rumble of warm engines
Halted for the slap of webbed feet
On asphalt. They walk like they could fly.