Flying Free
By Marc Audet
Lake Whitney shivers as the winter wind descends upon us from the Canadian Arctic. I pause my walk and search for the Canada Geese that visit these waters. They are back this morning, floating some distance away in composed tranquility, hardly noticing me. To think that they dare to cross our northern frontier in contempt of our politics, mocking our insolence to even suggest that we could tell them what to do. They care not for borders, more concerned about that sheet of ice that formed overnight, nudging them to seek shelter in the warmer waters nearer shore, by the clustered rushes where last spring, I saw a mating pair of swans nesting. On this frigid morning, I rest my spirit from the over repeated news cycle and take solace in the calmness of the lakeview before me. The geese are content to wait in the shallows for the seasons to turn. We are creatures less patient, our collective angst seething. We ache to scream, to be heard over sound bites of prevarication, to spread wings and be free again.
Marc Audet lives near New Haven, Connecticut, where he is self-employed as a web application developer. He has traveled and lived in Canada, England, France, and Ireland. His short stories, creative nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in Across the Margin, Flash Fiction Magazine, Uppagus, Rappahannock Review, The Prose Poem, The Gilded Weathervane, and elsewhere.
Photo credit: Tim Rains via a Creative Commons license.
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