Twenty Thousand Uninvited Sandhill Cranes Gather at Dusk
Michelle Geoga
(Jasper-Pulaski Fish & Wildlife Area, Medaryville, Indiana)
It’s like building a city from nothing in an expanse of nothingness
a city of stalky, red-masked visitors who amass on the marshy lawn at dusk
It’s like building a city of migrants who are the oldest bird species on earth,
kiting in nightly, after a day of field corn raiding and corn field dancing
It’s like building a city of twenty thousand visitors who arrive raucous, bugling
from all directions to roost for the night, descending in twos and two hundreds
It’s like building a city of twenty thousand workers who get up trumpeting
the dawn and go to work for the day, departing in twos and two hundreds
It’s like building a city of gabbing, dancing, socializing travelers, soon to
be gone, taking their city with them, leaving the silent, grassy marsh deserted
About the Author
Michelle Geoga is a writer and artist in Southwest Michigan. She has a BFA in art and an MFA in writing from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. Her work has been published in the
Little Patuxent Review, Third Wednesday, SWWIM, Cleaver and elsewhere. She was the beneficiary of a residency at Yaddo based on an early version of a novel in progress and a finalist for The Big Moose prize by Black Lawrence Press. Website: www.michellegeoga.com