The Pair by J. Roger Rowell

We are like two old geese,
Paired but no longer able to fly,
To feel the excitement of the sun’s first ray,
The anticipation and then the sudden rush into the full light,
The wind in our face,
The world reaching out,
The promise of the miles before us.
Now we watch others go,
We spend our days gathering what we can against the winter,
At night we lie together,
In each others eyes we see the certainty of the coming cold,
The hunger,
And the fox.
We huddle a little more closely,
And then we sleep.