When the snow geese migrate to the Delta, they journey from island to island, looking for safety, food, and water.  They rise into the air in waves, moving each morning.  By instinct they find another spot, and descend into the flooded field, the sunlight at their backs, row after row.  Their noise calls me from the house.  I grab my camera and stumble over my stubborn feet.  I should be in the office; I should be at my computer; I need to go, I must dash.  But I pull to the side of the road and lean as far as I can into the bramble from the passenger window.  Other cars barrel past.  I pray that I’ve gotten far enough out of their way.  I risk sliding into the boggy shoulder of the rough narrow pavement.  But I don’t care.  The geese are back.

It’s the twenty-seventh day of the seventy-third month of My Year Without Complaining.  Life continues.

I Meant to Do My Work Today
by Richard Le Gallienne

I meant to do my work today—
But a brown bird sang in the apple tree,
And a butterfly flitted across the field,
And all the leaves were calling me.

And the wind went sighing over the land,
Tossing the grasses to and fro,
And a rainbow held out its shining hand—
So what could I do but laugh and go?