Geese

I hear the geese as they land on the river. They drag their feet through the muddy currents, their wings beating backward, their necks long, and curved, like a flower nodding on its stem. There are only two of them, and they float slowly amongst the ducks. Above them, an osprey calls out, a high, urgent whistle. Children and families line the shore, playing with plastic buckets, reaching into coolers, lying on beach towels in the thin strip of shade. This early in the year the water is high, and even the willow is half-submerged, the river folding itself around its gray trunk, bending the light as it hits. It’s easy to pretend that we live somewhere tropical, a place where mangrove trees braid their roots into the sea, but we are here, in Oregon, in May, the river rippling from the jet boats that just passed by. I watch the geese as they rock, a steady back and forth, and I imagine that they, too, are thinking of the ocean.