Along beside the low tide spring bank estuary trotting head down 
clump to weedy clump the lithe long-legged dog seeks news 
from passing members of her kind I turn to move her on and hear 
the plaintive rusty weehonks of a black goose flying overhead in real time from 
the close-groomed sports field where they congregate behind the fence 
in numbers she aims at the open bay beyond the county hospital’s winking 
windowed beacon to our human maladies some scullers pry their craft 
up the channel in the early hours under the arching bridge that stitches 
the medi-ghetto to town roads the outbound low tide bares a band of stinking mud 
from which a buried tire rears     a segment of the monster’s midriff   lost from far 
Loch Ness and runners churning past and Spandexed bikers 
bent in wrestler-grips to handlebars 

what that lonesome goose seeks from the low sky realigns my earthbound hearing  
yanked bursts from the bird trailing more sense if that’s the term about the tire in 
the mud or yet the walkers fogged in chatty cell phonery  
on the multi-use path down the far bank     than about recoveries  of economies 
earthquakes or the wars abroad or lawcourts in the capital  

we walk our lane and suddenly we’re belled by red-blushed house finches 
a flock of sweetly tweeting blips that tune up springtime to a heart-throb pitch of 
melody aflutter everywhere in scrub acacia boughs and flitting up and down the 
chain link baseball fence the red birds’ acrobatic lyrics gladden all the whole calm 
sun-fed morning not a single wasted trill I end up with forgiveness for myself      
and all humanity besides