Geese Pond, 1985, and a Photo of My Daughter

In the summer, when the wind chimes shiver,
the light over the hills is like a beacon going south.
It can't be going south for the winter, not yet, for
the
geese are still here. My daughter is feeding the
geese
at the pond, laughing, smiling, talking to them as if
they
could talk back. And sometimes they do.
I wish I had a camera so I could take a picture of her
feeding the geese, so she could look back upon it when
she
is twenty or thirty and smile. Or better yet, I wish
I had a canvas
and paints so I could draw my daughter, a still
portrait that has come to life
before my very eyes.
I write about geese in poems, I write about the long
grass
around the banks and
my daughter's jeans pushed up tenaciously around
her ankles so she
can walk into the water a little ways,
her hair in her face as she gives
a piece of herself to the geese,
and the small, shallow pond.

(I wrote this when I was 22, 23.)