Usually I hear the phrase Wild Geese and I think of Mary Oliver … or Joni Mitchell’s Urge for Going.  (The version below doesn’t include the relevant line for my purposes today.  It goes … “See the geese in chevron flight flapping and a-racing on before the snow// They’ve got the urge for going, and they’ve got the wings so they can go.”)  I’ll see if I can find it and add it in later!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3EofN3Flag

But now I have a new poem … one from The Writer’s Almanac that I liked especially for today … as we celebrate the Beeg’s B-day (and a cowbird perches on the tippy top branch of the swaying crabapple outside my window)!

Wild Geese

by Charles Goodrich

I’m picking beans when the geese fly over, Blue Lake pole
beans I figure to blanch and freeze. Maybe pick some dilly beans.
And there will be more beans to give to the neighbors, forcibly if
necessary.
The geese come over so low I can hear their wings creak, can
see their tail feathers making fine adjustments. They slip-stream along
so gracefully, riding on each other’s wind, surfing the sky. Maybe
after the harvest I’ll head south. Somebody told me Puerto Vallarta is
nice. I’d be happy with a cheap room. Rice and beans at every meal.
Swim a little, lay on the beach.
Who are you kidding, Charles? You don’t like to leave home
in the winter. Spring, fall, or summer either. True. But I do love to
watch those wild geese fly over, feel these impertinent desires glide
through me. Then get back to work.

Beeg … may you enjoy your day … work, impertinent desires … every last bit of it!

Okay … here’s a cover version … with scrolling lyrics, no less.  Haunting song, this!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZRBg4yK7po