Canada Geese

They’ve crowded out the canvasbacks,
the Brants and pintails, and we’ve collaborated,
simplifying habitat beyond the endurance
of vulnerable species. They seem so ordinary:
“Ach, liebchen, I am so tired,” they say
in an easy-going honk like a rusty hinge.
But at a distance their calls coalesce
into a tenor chant, a mob in a stadium.

Out for a walk in this industrial town
where guards tell you to clean out your desk,
I look up startled to see them low overhead —
no picturesque vee tonight, but instead
a crude shambling line, a rope or a garrote,
their bellies flushed from the fires below.

26 Pages
$9
isbn 1-882983-81-5

John Palen

John Palen was born in Missouri in 1942. His poems have appeared for nearly 40 years in little magazines and journals, including Poetry Northwest, Kansas Quarterly, Passages North, Birmingham Poetry Review, Controlled Burn, and Driftwood Review. He has also published translations of Heinrich Heine and Heinz Czechowski.

The author of three previous books of poetry, Palen has been a writer in residence at several public schools in Michigan. One of his poems was recently set for chorus, piano and saxophone by Michigan composer Catherine McMichael and has been performed in this country and Ireland.

A fourth-generation journalist, Palen was a newspaper reporter and editor for 20 years, and now teaches journalism at Central Michigan University. He also puts out Midland Issues, an independent, subscriber-supported monthly newsletter covering local government in his hometown. He and his wife, cellist Lois Palen, live in Midland, Michigan, and have four grown children.