A skein and a gaggle each requires
more than one bird. When it joins
a group, what will the nomenclature
for my soul become, when no longer
earthbound but at last taking flight
while the living hold onto their own.
Similarly, geese fly in a V for the skein
while the gaggle meanders like clusters
of family and friends for my visitation.
When I was ten I fell several feet to earth
from the limb of an old oak I had climbed,
and my parents told me later I couldn’t
remember my name at first. Anonymous,
then I couldn’t recall I never knew myself.
Amnesia perhaps signals the soul’s jostling
for a moment. It gets firmly back in place,
as if it were practice for the great escape.
Photo by Stephanie Klepacki on Unsplash
