Flying Geese

I think this is the first poem I've posted here. Unleash on it. Show it no mercy.

Flying Geese


The tag says
the name of the pattern is
Flying Geese
sewn by the hands of Indonesian women.

Sitting on the bed, the quilt stretches away
in a series of interlocking isosceles triangles
white toward me
black away
like flying geese
and I recoil cross-legged (Indian style?)
against the nonexistent headboard.

It's not that a quilt is a lousy metaphor
for human existence and diversity
(it is)
It's not that the triangles
are such solid representations
of some feared or beloved triune deity;
My anxiety does not rest here.
The geese, honking and flailing,
assault and fall back,
a guerilla phalanx of my own
fears and misunderstandings:
white toward,
black away,
flying geese.

The shove
not passive
but violent:
Black away,
Flying geese,
White toward,
geese in flight
and my retreat into
my sage walls.