An ESME Sister shares her fear in a poem
shocked and appalled
after i’d watched a video of Barnacle goslings jumping from a nest
hundreds of feet up
jumping down to their parents
jumping down to a slammed against jagged rocks death
those that survived were called to but not waited for
cheeping out while taking hurried steps
injured and desperately trying to catch up
to parents who did not pause
why couldn’t this be done another way?
birds mere days old
tiny with no idea how to fly
why not make nests lower to the ground
or carry them down beak full like a pelican
something
anything
had to be better than hatchlings following trusted honks
alive a handful of days just to die
years have passed and yet this lingers
for some reason it never left me
the planet’s most lousy parent award
i’ve even jokingly revisited the disgust multiple times
the lingering recently morphed into a haunting
i checked on my son the other day
he’s 14 and to the untrained settler’s eye they’ll say he looks 16
our children aren’t afforded the luxury to be seen as such, not for long you see
he’s barely tannish, hazel green eyes, full lips
afro picked out perfectly
and worn as a crown
a fail-safe
just in case his lighter complexion would confuse
the desire to blend in or pass revolting
he’d been online and began to describe the latest crime against his kind
a Black man forced to crawl on his belly
chin touching the ground
toward police with guns drawn
and what was the crime?
standing in his own garage
i tried my best not to show it
but in that moment
all the accusations i’d spewed toward the Barnacle geese
they came rushing
filling up every space within me
flooding with barely any room to move or breathe
why couldn’t this be done another way?
why have a child and call them to follow you knowing what they meet after they leap
could be their end?
i have been trying not to drown in these thoughts ever since
i am no better than these birds once thought of as being birthed by the sea
my son is no safer than Barnacle goslings
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