Two Geese… A True Love Story

“What is mankind, that thou art mindful of him?... For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels."

Psalm 8:4-5

They were both absolutely white. And there was no way of knowing they were a pair. Given as gifts for my midwifery services, they became a symbol of all I believed was sacred. Sacred to Saraswati the Hindu goddess of knowledge. I knew them as angels in my yard. They were feathered living wisdom, and they let me bend down and stroke their bodies. In sleep they were poetry, necks intwined impossibly.

One fine day they mated. She set sail on the tiny pond we had built for them. He wrapped his wings around her in a grand tenderness. Once they discovered their pleasure, they explored it often. Playful worship. Angels locked in passion.

One morning I stepped off the house stones to be greeted by just one of the geese. Understanding my questioning look as I cleaned goose shit from my sandal, “he” led me to a quiet corner of the yard. “She” moved aside momentarily, to show three shock-white treasures. My heart sang with pride. I dreamed of the plump yellow promises inside. Babies. Baby angels were coming to live with us!

She would not leave the eggs, not even to eat or drink. I was followed by her worried mate. Under his guidance I brought food and water. She sipped, nibbled, they returned her full spiritual and physical attention to warming her offspring. We waited.

On the morning of the first hatching, I saw God’s eyes peering over a tiny golden beak, hiding under the angel mother’s belly. “He” was ecstatic, honking and strutting, pinching my children, nudging them toward the nest to see.

The next morning, the day that should have been shot through with sunshine and miracle. A snake came to collect his evil taxes. He wanted only one. The other two, still methodically pecking their way free from their shells, already partially visible, the world could have. Satan wanted the first born. Angel mother refused him. He took her life with a fierce, poisonous attack. The lovely white neck bore two thin red lines. Blood let from the puncture wounds. She died slowly, gracefully, as all immortal angels die after a holy battle. Lucifer-snake carried off her first born. “He” was helpless.

He tried to sit on the remaining two. He refused all food and water. His offspring rotted under him. He refused to give up the nest. Parasites ate at his body. I came to call him “Brother Job.” He smelled terrible. He never complained. He simply waited to rot and be eaten by those things that eat the dead. His soul had already flown to her. But suffer he did, gracefully.

In my life I had hoped to teach my children about love. The lesson they will remember, the one that sculpts their lives, will be the one taught by two dumb animals. Or where they angels?

“Unless you can love, as the angels may,

With the breadth of heaven betwixt you;

Unless you can dream that his faith is fast,

Through behooving and unbehooving;

Unless you can die when the dream is past -

Oh, never call it loving!”

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning