In early May migrating snow geese and trumpeter swans share meadows with resident Canada geese. The swans have moved on. A new gaggle of snow geese, maybe fifty in all, has just landed. I walk wide past their feeding area over a knoll and onto the beach.
On a bleached, beached hunk of driftwood, I rest my head. My body sinks into the warm sand. I skooch down pushing pokey shells and pointy rocks to the side.
Hours later, feeling the light change and the tides rise, I shift myself to standing. Taking one last long look at mountains, sea and circling gulls, I begin to head home.
Stepping up a small incline to the meadow, I hear a faint sound overhead. All fifty snow geese just feet from my face glide past. Have you ever heard the sound of one hundred wings pulsing the air. Well let me tell you.
There’s a gust of wind, a puff of feathers and a collective sigh. A whoosh of white and then they’re gone.
PS. I was too startled to snap a picture at that moment, so I used another photo from a different day. It almost captures it, but my experience was blinking eyes to beautiful bellies.