The Culmination of Days
One goose honked until it was hoarse—until anyone could have understood its anguish. ‘Help!’ it was screaming. ‘My baby!’
We have been mourning the loss this week of our Canada goose gosling, the only child of a pair that have been regulars on the pond for a few years. It was worrying when they appeared several weeks ago with only one fluffy youngster between them, down from how many we can’t know, maybe just two. But each morning and evening they would paddle past our dock in single file, keeping eyes on our Number One nature lover, Huckleberry, and while the adults took turns acting as sentry, they would forage for tender shoots underwater.
Over the weeks, we watched the gosling shed its yellow fuzz for the formal gray, white, and black uniform of its troop, get big enough to fall out of line with its caregivers, and venture deeper into the reeds. Flight training couldn’t have been far off. Soon enough, the threesome would be leaving for warmer coastal climates, with reliable sources of food for the winter.
But at the start of this week, early in the morning, before six a.m., as light was filling the sky and turning up the color on the trees and water lilies, I heard a splash, accompanied by an unnatural sound—loud, but muffled, as of someone throwing a sheet over someone else and stifling their cry. The geese erupted in frantic squawks, by itself not unusual (geese are alarmists), except that the squawking continued well past the alarm stage, and past what would seem reasonable for two geese squabbling. One goose stopped squawking, giving more voice to its distraught partner, who honked until it was hoarse—until anyone could have understood its anguish. ‘Help!’ it was screaming. ‘My baby!’
In reaction, Huck and I went down to the dock to get eyes on the situation. Without the binoculars I failed to bring along, the state of things on the far side of the pond where the commotion took place was difficult to assess. The loons were closer, already on their way to the scene. But through the morning mist that still lay in patches on the water’s surface—no doubt an accomplice in the bloody action—I counted two, not three, of the typically inseparable geese.
It is August, the culminating month of the year, in which the aspirations of every living thing in our part of the world are collected. The seeds are bearing their fruit, the fawns are losing their spots, the cubs have grown, the people have gone on vacation, and when they return, the children will enter new grades at school. Meanwhile, our Canada geese will fly home alone. They will join in a wedge with others, aware of the looks they may get, and be grateful that questions don't get asked. Because who doesn’t comprehend? Who doesn’t, at least, understand? For them, the ride home this year will be quiet.
What was one gosling against so many? Eagles and hawks from above, snapping turtles from below, foxes, coyotes, bobcats, from the shore. As I say, we were hopeful as the weeks clicked by, and junior grew to adolescent size. Then this, whatever this was. A thief. A pirate. Some wily and lightning quick predator crouched in the shallows, behind the purple reeds, hungry, with things of its own to look after. It was nearly August, and the time left for it to get fat was dwindling.
We are lulled by a sense of peace and quiet around the pond. We do not think much about the fish that fall prey to the loons, or the squirrels snatched from their nests by owls, or the frogs swallowed by snakes. Do these things make it a violent world? The ash trees are dead thanks to the emerald ash borer. The porcupines are eating our pear tree. I am busy stamping out the ground ivy that is choking our lawn. And most of it happens with the subtlety of a summer breeze until we are jolted by a splash and the anguish of a caregiver, and reminded that life has made provision for everyone—itself, most of all.
The adult pair of geese reappeared the next evening, landing in our cove from someplace which may have offered a change of scene, and perhaps short-cut grass. We were having some wine and nibbling on Goldfish crackers at the end of the dock, and we watched and waited as the two made their way over to the rock, a safe distance away, that we call, Goose Rock—their rock—where only a short time ago three of them had padded around, pausing to take naps, slipping in and out of the water, looking very much like anybody’s family.
I pitched a few Goldfish in their direction, as an offer of condolence—as a special treat—as an alternative to being able to run my hand over the top of their heads and down their long neck and pat them tenderly between the shoulders of the powerful wings, which if they had been a little closer might have landed the blow that sent the predator running. They never touched the Goldfish, but, remarkably, they swam to us, maybe sensing the invitation. Huckleberry quivered at the edge of the dock. We quivered a bit ourselves in our wooden Adirondack chairs as they got close, not close enough to stroke their necks, but close enough to hear them cluck and to feel their trust, as neighbors who will let you use their telephone if a tree has come down across the lines, and your power is out, and who will pour you coffee (or pitch you Goldfish) while you figure out your next move.
It is August. Time for the county fair, the prize pig, the wagon full of corn—the culmination of so many days. And the time for starting over.