# Living Psalm 19(Epiphany 3)_Mankin

The geese fly late this year. 
I watch another V cut across the sky, 
long and sloppy, one group after another. 
I’ve been missing the fireflies of July, 
but this beauty destroys me. Today, 
I am made of loneliness, of the dry tinder 
of January, and I am jealous of the community 
of geese, and of how they seem to rise above it all.

I am angry at the sky for giving me hope,
for lighting me up with rose and gold
and the swift flight of birds. It isn’t fair 
that such beauty stretches above us when less 
than a mile away, my neighbor’s house is ash,
when the nurses one town over not only fight infection,
but kept the very building where they serve us
from burning to the ground in an inferno.

The new year is too much pressure 
when I have barely accepted the tattered remains 
of the old - when hope only lingers on the outskirts, 
in the frigid azure streaks of dusk. The geese 
should be gone by now. The snow is deep 
and the ponds frozen, but still, when I stop for a moment 
and look up, searching, they streak by. 

Across the grass, my neighbor stands looking up, bundled head to toe, 
holding a leash. I can’t recall her name, but the dog is Jasmine.
I usually see her husband walking, but I heard the restaurant 
where she works burned too, so here she is, out of step,
out of sync, staring at the sky, searching. 

I am not so alone as this ache would have me believe. 
Maybe I’m just the goose out front today, wings beating,
exhausted, heartsick for home, and a little lost.
Behind me, another is waiting to step up, to allow me rest 
If I can accept that I must drop all the way to the back to claim it. 
Maybe from a great distance, my pain looks like strength
to someone else who is searching the skies for hope.