Maps of Belonging: A Poem

Geese fly in a bright line

(Pexels, Daniel Gomez)

January is such an odd, in-between season. I hope you’re being kind to yourselves in the longer darker days, friends: lighting candles and reading books and not neglecting getting outdoors sometimes. Here’s a poem about birds, flight, and purposefulness.

Maps of Belonging

Geese fly in a bright line the
human life can never find. 

the peace of order. 
the birds bank their life 
along a ruler in the air, 
architecting their belonging 
in remorseless space. 

is it possible to 
pare off one shining 
piece of grace 

to refract into that kind 
of knowing? 

how 
to go north in the summer;
south in the winter. 

a hundred prayers 
offered into air. 

latitudes of longing,
longitudes of loss, 
for perspicuity, destination. 

in trade
for this geography,

let us, in the edgebent of going, 
find our lives. Every beat of muscled wings,
maps carrying us home.

~love, Claire Adderholt