Nature's many calls

Something awakened me at 4:15 this morning. It wasn't the cats, as warmly ensconced at the foot of the bed as they had been five hours earlier. It wasn't my spouse. Nature's call could be ignored.

The wind had died down from its October cold-front howl and maybe that was it. It was too quiet. The temp had dropped into the 50s, but my window was slightly cracked. I wasn't cold but...

I was hearing something, the hauntingly beautiful sound of geese flying overhead.

We're not a big goose area, unless you count the semi-domesticated Canadians my friend introduced to our lake many goose-generations ago. As we're on the Central Flyway for migratory birds, we get geese twice a year, going north, going south.

These were the sensible headed-south geese. And they were up early. I had seen a vee formation last week about 30 miles from here, but I hadn't heard them. This morning, in the calm, cold air, I heard not one, but two pass over. Haunting. Lonely. A reminder of the changes that are coming.

I laid there and listened to them fade away. Then answered Nature's call, disturbed the cats and accidentally woke up my husband.

Oh well.