Migration
High up in the sky last night,
A promise winged its wedge-shaped flight;
A promise of the seasons changing,
Of nature’s landscape rearranging.
Flying in a V formation,
Looking for a new location,
Wild geese flew through moonlit spaces
Going to their springtime places.
–Blanche Day Manos
Yesterday I saw a flock of geese heading North–the first flock I’ve seen this year. Sunlight glinted on their wings as they turned and stirred through the clear, cold sky. I’m not sure why they hadn’t lined up in their classic wedge formation. They seemed to be making their travel plans. Maybe they were choosing a leader. To me, bird migration is another of those wonders that reveal a Creator who put a little time clock in their heads telling them when it’s time to go but, more amazingly, telling them where to go. I can’t see any charts in the sky or arrows saying, “This Way”. Yet, they unerringly arrive at their spring and summer homes.
Who but God could have known that the V formation would be the fastest and least tiring way to fly long distances? When the leader gets tired, does he honk back to his fellows saying that he needs a break and someone else should take over? The lead goose gets the most resistance from the wind and his followers get a lot less. Being the head goose must be tiring.
How many remember hearing Frankie Laine sing “The Cry of the Wild Goose”? The haunting, lonely cry of a skein of geese floating down from the sky is a sure sign that cold weather is on the way out. Do the geese carry winter with them on their wings?
God has a plan for the wild geese and each spring and autumn, they follow that plan, doing what their ancestors have done for centuries. Many of us earth-bound humans travel with them, if only in our imaginations.
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