After my spiritual encounter with small flock of Snow Geese last week, I called the Nature Center to ask about how they fit into the general waterfowl population of our area. A couple of days later the state biologist gave me a call. Turns out he’s a former neighbor and Earhart parent whom I haven’t see for twenty plus years. All the cool kids go to the environmental magnet, don’t cha know?
He said the Snow Goose is abundant in the area, but are not seen in the city very often. They are considered a pest by the wheat farmers because they rip the dormant wheat up by the roots, instead of just politely grazing the green shoots off the tops like the Canadian and the White-fronted goose. Consequently, the hunting season is longer and the bag limit is higher for the Snow Goose than for the other species.
Much of the romance remains for me, despite this disturbing habit, because of the wonderful novella by Paul Gallico – the only work of fiction that my mother ever insisted I read. However, I think she insisted a little ahead of my ability to really comprehend all of it. She always had high hopes for me that way.
To me, then, it was simply a touching story of a lonely isolated man helping a young girl nurse a wounded bird back to life. Sad at first, and then uplifting, right? I missed all the part about why he was isolated and lonely. I think Mom tried to lead me to the basic symbolism of man and nature and the girl and new life. Maybe? But the whole evacuation of Dunkirk, I didn’t learn about that until years later.
In the story, the Snow Goose has been separated from her flock by a storm, and is a lone stranger in unfamiliar territory. The hunters who bring her down do so for the very fact that she is unusual. In her fall and her recovery, she becomes a catalyst for profound change, lives are saved, wars are won, humanity is regained. I’m sorry it took so long, Mom, but I think I get it now.
All it took some ghost geese to fly up the Big River at just the right moment, brush the bottoms of the clouds and disappear in a wisp of white smoke somewhere between my past and my ability to remember it.