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Maz Verhart

Let's Go! Let's Go!

March. Winter holds on this year. For the Barnacle geese hibernating here the time to leave for their breeding grounds within the polar circle has been passing for weeks already. The later they go, the less time for nesting, hatching and raising the young. And if the next winter yonder comes early, the young will not yet be ready to fly, or at least not well enough to complete the full journey to these grounds here. Yes, the margins are very narrow. So narrow that any loss of time may result in a lost generation. A tragedy is pending - and it keeps on freezing. The thought of it makes me feel uneasy!

And then one day: all of a sudden their unrest is showing and one notices how strongly they feel to have waited long enough, that all of their being wants to go away, go away, go away - away to the far north to procreate.

clouds of noise
take off from the meadows -
the decision is made

Wow! What a decision that must be! "Come on fellows, let's go! Let's go! We can wait no longer! Come on, let's go!!" It honks and cackles from bill to bill al over the river outlands. And yes indeed, there they go into the air, thousands, no, tens of thousands of geese, excited and with lots of racket, up to the north, brimming with necessity.

a chaos of geese
takes off into the air
and forms patterns

empty fields–
a glass bell of silence
settles