The First Frost

Last night, I heard a flock of geese at 10 pm, and then again at midnight, and I went outside to see the huge silvery wings in the moonlight, drifting through city lights reflecting off low clouds. It was a global-warming, fall-too-hot, frost-too-early feeling. I felt concerned about the geese because their calls sounded troubled and frantic until I felt the strength of their wings, and the rhythmic pulse of their calls. A train clattered onto the bridge across the Willamette River, and in the quiet, the vibrating tracks and tons of steel, turned the geese calls into misty whispers. I watched the geese angle toward downtown Portland and wondered if they fly between skyscrapers or find their way around them and how many night owls were quietly witnessing their courage.