Between Compass Points

The geese rewrite the sky's grammar, their necks stretching toward a longitude only they remember—not home, but the idea of home, repeated. The wind fills their wings like it fills the spaces between words.

Below, the ponds forget themselves. Ice turns to water turns to light turning back to darkness. Everything moves in loops we name when we're still enough.

A feather catches on a fence. We pick it up and feel the weight of distance, the heft of departure. Nothing that leaves comes back unchanged.

The season splits like fruit. We taste its sweetness and its rot, the seed at the center that insists on growing, on becoming something new.