Light as a Feather

On Christmas, a Canada Goose family paddled Lake Gregg, their color-block-style feathers providing formal attire for dull weather.  I assume they were warm in the cold water on the cold day, as I sleep winter nights under a goose down comforter, head resting on pillows stuffed with goose down.

Right now, as I type this post (aimlessly paddling the keyboard and screen for a throughline), an unexpected Christmas gift hangs from my tensor light: a glass orb filled with soft tawny feathers.  When I first saw them, I thought "guineafowl," not so much because I am familiar with many of the living species (though I have seen them and tried to walk among them), but because a folk artist has made their "eyes" so familiar.

Guineafowl make great watch "dogs," I am told, because they are loud and fluttery.  Geese are pests, I am told, because they soil new mown grass with abandon.  Both are also beautiful, I know, and now they conflate in my mind because of the coincidence of a gift and a sighting.

I went again to Lake Gregg today, but the geese were gone.  Coupled for life and model parents, they provide the kind of feathered nest people might long for: attentive care of doting adults.  Just watch a gosling ride the wake of a parent's stroke, and you'll know what I mean.