The Wild Geese.....

Today was a perfect autumn day. The kind of day to go bird watching at Castle Espie near Comber, County Down. And that's what we did.
From the Brent hide overlooking Strangford Lough, we saw at least five hundred Brent geese, eighty Eider ducks and ten Little egrets. Thousands more Brents and Whooper swans are expected here within the next few weeks, where they will stay for the winter.
The wood at Castle Espie was full of Robins, Blue tits, Great tits, Coal tits, Goldfinches and Goldcrests today. And the newly restored Lime Kiln Observatory, is another good place to watch the Brent geese on the lough.
It was while we were in the Lime Kiln Observatory that something quite unexpected happened. A nice lady introduced herself and her friend as members of a writers circle, and asked if she could read us this poem........


The Wild Geese (Wendell Berry)

Horseback on Sunday morning,
harvest over, we taste persimmon
and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer's end. In time's maze
over fall fields, we name names
that went west from here, names
that rest on graves. We open
a persimmon seed to find the tree
that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed's marrow.
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear,
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye
clear. What we need is here.